First Read: Visa & Mastercard "Brief initial thoughts on US debit network..."

Research evidence excerpt

First Read: Visa & Mastercard "Brief initial thoughts on US debit network..."

percentage of Visa total company net revenues. We use two approaches to triangulate

this estimate, one beginning with the US net revenue disclosure within Visa's 10-K, and

the other beginning with the figure provided as part of the Visa DOJ case court

documents. Visa did ~$3.6b of US debit volume in CY 2025, with Visa issuers Chase,

Wells Fargo, and PNC accounting for ~$503b, ~$486b, and ~$140b, respectively (per

The Nilson Report). Bank of America issues both Visa & Mastercard debit cards

(Mastercard's only exposure to a large US debit issuer), and accounted for ~$497b in

2025 volume. Illustratively, even if we were to assume that Visa's largest issuing partner,

Chase, were to acquire STAR/Accel, their ~mid-teens portion of US debit purchase

volume (based on Nilson data) on ~16-17% of net revenue would suggest ~200-

250bps of net revenue impact at the surface, albeit likely closer to ~150-200bps when

accounting for the higher levels of incentives paid to these larger banks, and even lower

if the acquirer were anyone other than Chase. While we believe the prospect of a

consortium is even less likely, we provide the sizing of each of the four large debit issuers

referenced in the press reports, which in aggregate make up ~30% of the US debit

market (based on Visa, Mastercard, and PIN network US debit volumes).

Figure 1: Two illustrative approaches to sizing applicable US debit net revenue

mix for Visa; while we do not believe this is probable, our initial analysis points

to only a potential less than ~2% revenue impact to Visa if actioned (applying

debit issuer volumes against the revenue mix below, taking into consideration

elevated incentives for large issuers)