Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

CWA Asset Management Group LLC lowered its holdings in Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA – Free Report) by 17.8% during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 17,198 shares of the credit services provider’s stock after selling 3,712 shares during the quarter. CWA Asset Management Group LLC’s holdings in Mastercard were worth $9,484,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Robinswood Financial LLC acquired a new position in Mastercard during the first quarter worth $25,000. First Pacific Financial increased its stake in shares of Mastercard by 113.8% during the first quarter. First Pacific Financial now owns 62 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 33 shares during the period. Allied Private Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Mastercard in the 2nd quarter valued at $34,000. Premier Financial Group acquired a new stake in Mastercard in the second quarter valued at $39,000. Finally, Roxbury Financial LLC raised its position in shares of Mastercard by 102.6% during the 2nd quarter. Roxbury Financial LLC now owns 79 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $40,000 after acquiring an additional 40 shares in the last quarter. 97.28% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity In other Mastercard news, insider Sachin Mehra sold 3,266 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $584.00, for a total transaction of $1,907,344.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 36,650 shares in the company, valued at $21,403,600. This represents a 8.18% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Michael Miebach sold 15,372 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $575.00, for a total transaction of $8,838,900.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 93,693 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $53,873,475. This trade represents a 14.09% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 72,676 shares of company stock valued at $41,966,586 in the last 90 days. 0.09% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Mastercard Stock Performance Shares of MA opened at $616.65 on Tuesday. Mastercard Incorporated has a 1 year low of $464.52 and a 1 year high of $622.49. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $577.08 and its 200 day simple moving average is $536.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.96, a quick ratio of 1.06 and a current ratio of 1.06. The company has a market capitalization of $540.20 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.88, a PEG ratio of 1.76 and a beta of 0.76. Mastercard (NYSE:MA – Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 30th. The credit services provider reported $5.04 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.77 by $0.27. The business had revenue of $9.28 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.08 billion. Mastercard had a return on equity of 239.99% and a net margin of 46.34%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 14.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $4.15 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Mastercard Incorporated will post 19.91 EPS for the current year.

Mastercard Announces Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, November 9th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 9th will be paid a dividend of $0.87 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 9th. This represents a $3.48 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.6%. Mastercard’s payout ratio is currently 19.14%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of brokerages recently weighed in on MA. Bank of America boosted their price target on shares of Mastercard from $700.00 to $735.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Evercore lifted their price objective on shares of Mastercard from $550.00 to $620.00 in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Truist Financial boosted their target price on Mastercard from $554.00 to $633.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Rothschild & Co Redburn cut their price target on shares of Mastercard from $710.00 to $688.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, September 2nd. Finally, Wolfe Research raised their price objective on Mastercard from $680.00 to $740.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 25th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty have issued a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $682.66.

Check Out Our Latest Report on MA

Key Stories Impacting Mastercard Here are the key news stories impacting Mastercard this week:

Positive Sentiment: Mastercard introduced a Stablecoin Security tool that combines payment and blockchain intelligence to identify fraud, scams and sanctions exposure before stablecoin transactions are completed. The product could support adoption of blockchain-based payments while creating additional risk-management revenue opportunities. Mastercard introduces risk intelligence to enable more secure stablecoin payments Positive Sentiment: The company is expanding its crypto team and integrating stablecoin cards and payment capabilities across roughly 130 countries, reinforcing Mastercard’s position as traditional networks connect digital assets with fiat commerce. Stablecoin payments were reported to have grown 45% to $482 billion. Mastercard expands crypto team as stablecoins take center stage Positive Sentiment: Mastercard launched an AI-powered Agent Detection Score to estimate whether a transaction was initiated by software rather than a person. The tool may help the network manage fraud and trust risks as autonomous shopping agents become more common. Mastercard unveiled an AI Agent Detection Score Positive Sentiment: Partnerships with Extend, Moovn, BankIslami and Powertranz are broadening Mastercard’s business-software, African, Pakistani and restaurant-payment offerings, potentially supporting long-term transaction-volume growth. Neutral Sentiment: U.S. officials are pressing China on independent market access for Mastercard’s network. Greater access would be a significant growth opportunity, but the outcome and timing remain uncertain. U.S. officials press China on market access Negative Sentiment: CFO Ling Hai sold 4,317 shares worth approximately $2.7 million under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan. The sale is a modest negative sentiment signal, although scheduled insider selling does not necessarily indicate a change in business outlook. Negative Sentiment: With Mastercard trading near its 52-week high at a valuation of roughly 33 times earnings, expectations are elevated. Investors may demand continued strong growth beyond the most recent quarter’s 14.1% revenue increase and earnings beat. Mastercard Company Profile (Free Report)

Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE: MA) is a global payments technology company that operates a network connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses. The company facilitates electronic payments and provides technology that supports transactions conducted through credit, debit, prepaid and commercial payment products.

In addition to operating its payments network, Mastercard offers services in areas such as payment security, fraud prevention, authentication, cybersecurity, data and analytics, loyalty programs, digital identity and open banking.

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Mastercard keeps beating earnings estimates while its stock sits almost flat for the year, leaving investors caught between a compelling valuation and a disruption story that refuses to go away. Here is what the bulls and bears are watching heading…

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Mastercard (NYSE:MA | MA Price Prediction) trades at $570.03. The payments giant keeps beating earnings estimates, yet the stock has gone almost nowhere while the broader market rose.

Mastercard runs a global network that moves payments between card-issuing banks and merchants. It has 3.7 billion Mastercard and Maestro cards in circulation. It has now beaten EPS estimates for six straight quarters, most recently posting adjusted EPS of $5.04 against a $4.77 consensus on net revenue of $9.28 billion, up 14.1%. Even so, worries about stablecoin disruption and pressure on interchange fees have kept a lid on the shares. Reuters recently reported warnings of more losses for the stock.

Rising Earnings Are Making the Stock Cheaper The bull case starts with valuation. Mastercard trades at 31 times trailing earnings but only 24 times forward earnings. Over the past 30 days, analysts made 31 upward revisions against 2 downward to their 2027 EPS estimates, and the consensus now stands at $23.0248.

The business keeps getting stronger. Value-added services revenue grew 20%, cross-border volume rose 12%, and the adjusted operating margin expanded to 61.1%. Potential catalysts include Agent Pay (payments made by AI agents), the BVNK stablecoin acquisition and a switching deal in the UAE. Buybacks add support: Mastercard bought back $4.90 billion of stock last quarter and has $7.80 billion left on its authorization.

Stablecoins and Regulators Could Keep the Multiple in Check Bears point out that an 87.42 price-to-book ratio leaves no room for structural risk. Stablecoins could get around card networks, and interchange regulation goes straight at Mastercard’s core economics. Litigation continues to cost money, with $82 million in provisions last quarter.

Near-term estimates are sliding. Fourth-quarter EPS estimates saw 18 downward revisions versus 9 upward. Management also expects rebates and incentives to edge slightly higher in the third quarter. Barron’s noted the stock’s weakness heading into the next earnings report.

A Range-Bound Stock Waiting for Proof The shares sit near their $571.50 50-day average, between a 52-week low of $463.74 and a high of $601.23. Execution remains strong, while the disruption narrative remains open. A new CFO, Ling Hai, adds another variable worth tracking.

Strong Fundamentals, Flat Shares The stock trades at $570.03. The consensus target of $666.71 implies about 17% upside, though price targets are estimates that can change. The rating breakdown:

Strong Buy: 9 Buy: 27 Hold: 4 Sell: 0 Year to date, Mastercard is up 0.35%, while the S&P 500 is up 13.98%. Over one year, the stock is down 1.07%, compared with a 16.16% gain for the index.

What Could Move Mastercard Shares Next At $570.03, Mastercard faces clear upside and downside triggers.

A stronger bull case needs the next earnings report to deliver on guidance of revenue growth at the high end of low double digits, with steady cross-border volume. A clean break above $601.23 would show buyers are finally willing to pay up for that growth.

The bear case would strengthen if interchange regulation tightens, stablecoins start pulling significant volume off card networks, or the stock falls below its $532.17 200-day average. Volatility has been relatively contained. The stock has a beta of 0.76, which means it typically moves less than the market, and it pays a $3.37 annual dividend.

Each quarter, track value-added services growth, rebate trends and early agentic commerce volumes. Mastercard has already proven its business can grow. The next test is whether that growth can lift the share price again.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Rockland Trust Co. increased its stake in Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA – Free Report) by 6.2% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 81,392 shares of the credit services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,751 shares during the quarter. Mastercard comprises about 1.7% of Rockland Trust Co.’s portfolio, making the stock its 15th biggest holding. Rockland Trust Co.’s holdings in Mastercard were worth $44,885,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Robinswood Financial LLC bought a new stake in shares of Mastercard during the 1st quarter worth about $25,000. Hyposwiss Advisors SA bought a new position in shares of Mastercard in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. First Pacific Financial boosted its holdings in shares of Mastercard by 113.8% in the first quarter. First Pacific Financial now owns 62 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 33 shares in the last quarter. Lifetime Wealth Management P.C. bought a new position in shares of Mastercard in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Finally, Allied Private Wealth LLC acquired a new position in shares of Mastercard during the second quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Institutional investors own 97.28% of the company’s stock.

Mastercard Trading Up 2.1% NYSE MA traded up $11.67 on Monday, hitting $563.93. 978,872 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,529,723. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $571.56 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $528.68. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.96, a current ratio of 1.06 and a quick ratio of 1.06. Mastercard Incorporated has a 52-week low of $464.52 and a 52-week high of $601.23. The company has a market capitalization of $494.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.00, a P/E/G ratio of 1.58 and a beta of 0.76.

Mastercard (NYSE:MA – Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The credit services provider reported $5.04 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.77 by $0.27. Mastercard had a return on equity of 239.99% and a net margin of 46.34%.The company had revenue of $9.28 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.08 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $4.15 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 14.1% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that Mastercard Incorporated will post 19.9 EPS for the current year. Mastercard Announces Dividend The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, November 9th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 9th will be given a dividend of $0.87 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 9th. This represents a $3.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.6%. Mastercard’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 19.14%.

Insider Activity In other news, CEO Michael Miebach sold 16,628 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $567.68, for a total value of $9,439,383.04. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 115,921 shares in the company, valued at $65,806,033.28. This represents a 12.54% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Sachin Mehra sold 7,444 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $577.13, for a total transaction of $4,296,155.72. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 40,916 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $23,613,851.08. This trade represents a 15.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 67,618 shares of company stock worth $38,854,630 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.09% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on MA shares. Loop Capital upped their target price on Mastercard from $631.00 to $647.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Wolfe Research boosted their price objective on Mastercard from $680.00 to $740.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 25th. Rothschild & Co Redburn cut their price objective on Mastercard from $710.00 to $688.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, September 2nd. Cantor Fitzgerald raised their target price on Mastercard from $650.00 to $695.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, August 3rd. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada lifted their target price on Mastercard from $642.00 to $696.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, August 31st. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty have assigned a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Mastercard has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $680.00.

Check Out Our Latest Report on Mastercard

Mastercard Profile (Free Report)

Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE: MA) is a global payments technology company that operates a network connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses. The company facilitates the authorization, clearing and settlement of electronic payment transactions, while generally not issuing cards or extending credit itself. Its network supports payments made in stores, online and through mobile devices.

Mastercard’s products and services include consumer and commercial payment cards, digital payment solutions, payment processing, fraud prevention, cybersecurity, identity verification, data and analytics, and open banking tools.

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Mastercard, the global payments network MA , launched Advanced B2B Analytics to help banks find suppliers willing to take card payments, with shares up about 0.3% to $551.65 on Oct. 2. The pitch is straightforward: turn payment data into more commercial-card spending. The valuation graphic puts the stock 19.69% below its $686.88 GF Value estimate, suggesting potential upside if that estimate holds.

The tool scans accounts-payable data, scores suppliers' likelihood of accepting cards and gives banks a clearer target list. Mastercard named Absa Group and Emirates NBD among the first banks offering it to corporate customers. Dashboards and working-capital insights round out the package. The release provides no customer total, pricing details or payment volume generated, leaving the commercial payoff unquantified.

For investors, the appeal is the link between advice and transactions. If banks use those scores to persuade suppliers to accept cards, Mastercard could capture more payment activity. But a promising supplier list is only the starting point. Banks must act, suppliers must agree and spending must follow. The number to watch is incremental card volume—not how many recommendations the software produces.

Key Takeaways Mastercard launched Advanced B2B Analytics to help issuers identify suppliers likely to accept card payments.Mastercard uses AI scoring, dashboards and enriched data to prioritize outreach and expand card acceptance.Absa Group and Emirates NBD are among the first institutions offering the capability to corporate clients. Mastercard Incorporated (MA - Free Report) is expanding its commercial-payments capabilities with Mastercard Advanced B2B Analytics, a new platform designed to help banks and corporate clients identify suppliers that are more likely to accept card-based payments. The solution uses AI-powered analytics to turn accounts payable data into actionable supplier insights, allowing issuers to target commercial-card opportunities more efficiently.

The platform uses dynamic acceptance propensity scoring, interactive dashboards and enriched payment data to help issuers prioritize suppliers, improve outreach and identify opportunities to expand card acceptance. It also provides greater visibility into payment flows, potentially helping businesses manage working capital while increasing the use of commercial and virtual cards.

The launch addresses a key challenge in B2B payments: identifying where card acceptance can realistically expand while reducing reliance on broad, manual supplier outreach. Mastercard estimates the addressable B2B payments opportunity at roughly $80 trillion, giving financial institutions a substantial pool of payment flows to target. Absa Group and Emirates NBD are among the first institutions offering the capability to corporate clients.

For Mastercard, the larger opportunity lies in helping issuers convert existing accounts payable relationships into incremental card transactions. Rather than waiting for commercial-card adoption to expand organically, the platform could help identify payment flows with a higher probability of conversion. If successful, this could support higher switched volumes while strengthening Mastercard’s role in the broader corporate-payments ecosystem.

The initiative also aligns with Mastercard’s broader expansion into data, AI and value-added services beyond its traditional payment network. If Advanced B2B Analytics gains wider adoption across issuers, it could support broader payment optimization and commercial-card penetration, providing MA with another avenue to expand its presence in B2B payments and deepen relationships with banks and corporate customers.

MA’s Price PerformanceOver the past six months, MA’s shares have gained 15% compared with the industry’s growth of 3.2%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

MA’s Zacks Rank & Key PicksMA currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some top-ranked stocks in the business services space are Remitly Global, Inc. (RELY - Free Report) , ScanSource, Inc. (SCSC - Free Report) and The GEO Group, Inc. (GEO - Free Report) , each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Remitly Global’s current-year earnings of $1.57 per share has witnessed one upward revision in the past 60 days against no movement in the opposite direction. RELY beat earnings estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, with the average surprise being 327.7%. The consensus estimate for current-year revenues is pegged at $2 billion, implying 21.4% year-over-year growth.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for ScanSource’s current-year earnings of $4.56 per share has witnessed one upward revision in the past 60 days against no movement in the opposite direction. SCSC beat earnings estimates in three of the trailing four quarters and missed once, with the average surprise being 7.8%. The consensus estimate for current-year revenues is pegged at $3.5 billion, calling for an 8% year-over-year increase.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for The Geo Group’s current-year earnings of $1.31 per share has witnessed three upward revisions in the past 60 days against no movement in the opposite direction. GEO beat earnings estimates in three of the trailing four quarters and met once, with the average surprise being 24.6%. The consensus estimate for current-year revenues is pegged at $3 billion, calling for a 14.1% year-over-year increase.

Key Takeaways Mastercard is using SoFiUSD to settle SoFi's debit and credit card transactions on its network.SoFi's card program is expected to process more than $25 billion in annualized volume.Mastercard and SoFi are exploring stablecoin uses in cross-border payments and remittances. MastercardIncorporated (MA - Free Report) is positioning the SoFi launch as a move from testing stablecoin settlement to using it in a live payments environment. SoFi Bank is now settling debit and credit card transactions on Mastercard’s network with SoFiUSD, using MA’s existing payment infrastructure. The idea is simple: add stablecoins as another settlement choice rather than replace traditional payment rails. This gives the company a real example of how stablecoin settlement can work as banks evaluate digital settlement.

The size of the rollout makes the launch notable. SoFi is moving its entire card program, expected to process more than $25 billion in annualized volume, to SoFiUSD settlement, with transactions already live on the blockchain. SoFiUSD is redeemable 1:1 for U.S. dollars and backed primarily by cash. Through SoFi’s Big Business Banking platform, merchants can receive funds instantly and withdraw cash around the clock at zero cost.

The near-term financial impact for Mastercard is hard to measure as no revenue or earnings details were disclosed. The bigger point is that Mastercard is showing it can support blockchain-based settlement without replacing its existing payment infrastructure. If more issuers, acquirers and merchants adopt stablecoins, the company could capture more settlement activity and strengthen its role in connecting traditional finance with digital assets.

SoFi is already in discussions with large U.S. merchants, including multinational retailers and technology platforms, about stablecoin settlement. Mastercard and SoFi are also exploring cross-border payments, remittances and other money-movement uses, giving Mastercard another avenue to expand payment flows as businesses seek faster, more flexible settlement.

How Are Competitors Faring?Some of MA’s competitors in the payment space are Visa Inc. (V - Free Report) and PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL - Free Report) .

Visa is expanding its stablecoin capabilities through the Visa Stablecoin Platform, launched in July. The platform helps financial institutions and fintechs mint, move and manage stablecoins. Stablecoin settlement volume recently surpassed a $20 billion annualized run rate, while more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs operate on its network.

PayPal is expanding PYUSD’s role in merchant payments. In August, PYPL introduced PYUSD settlement for eligible U.S. merchants, allowing them to convert part of their PayPal balances into PYUSD and earn 4% rewards. PayPal also supports crypto payments with settlement in local currency.

Mastercard’s Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesIn the year-to-date period, MA’s shares have lost 2.6% compared with the industry’s decline of 11.6%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

From a valuation standpoint, MA trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 25.14, above the industry average of 17.15. MA carries a Value Score of D.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Mastercard’s 2026 earnings implies 17% growth from the year-ago period’s level.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Mastercard currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Shared agent identity can reduce integration costs while making competing payment networks easier to connect. Summary

Mastercard is prioritizing transaction reach over a closed agent ecosystem.

Mastercard MA, the global payments network, pushed deeper into AI-driven commerce by backing common identity standards for autonomous shopping agents, Reuters reported. The shares slipped approximately 0.5% to $570.60 Wednesday. The bigger story is not simply whether AI can shop for consumers—it is whether payment networks can reliably identify which software agents are actually authorized to spend their money.

Mastercard, Visa and Ant International are developing a Know-Your-Agent framework designed to verify approved purchasing agents across card networks, digital wallets, marketplaces and AI platforms. Each participant would still control its own authorization and risk policies, but a shared identity layer could eliminate the need for merchants and AI developers to build separate verification systems for every payment ecosystem. That matters because fewer integration hurdles could make agent-based payments easier to deploy at scale.

Mastercard expects more than one in ten online shoppers to routinely let AI agents make purchases for them by 2030, while its Agent Pay for Machines initiative already has more than 30 supporters, including Stripe, Coinbase and Cloudflare. The valuation picture adds another angle: the chart shows Mastercard at $570.60 versus a GF Value™ estimate of $682.45, putting the shares 16.39% below that benchmark. That discount suggests the market is assigning limited value today to Mastercard's longer-term agentic-commerce opportunity, leaving execution—rather than the AI narrative itself—as the key question for investors.

Disclosures I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and have no plans to buy any new positions in the stocks mentioned within the next 72 hours.

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Safety Stocks Are Not What They Used to Be: 4 Names Built for a Weaker DollarMastercard NYSE: MA CFO Ling Hai said the company remains focused on top-line growth, supported by consumer spending resilience, cross-border travel and non-travel payments, services expansion, and targeted acquisitions.

Speaking at a conference in his first month as CFO, Hai said his capital-allocation priorities are to invest in organic growth, pursue acquisitions that add capabilities or speed to market, maintain a strong balance sheet and positive operating leverage, and return excess capital to shareholders through buybacks and dividends.

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Blueprint for a Banking Fortress: Circle Redraws the MapHai, who has spent 17 years at Mastercard in management roles across Greater China, Europe, Asia and international markets, said his operational background provides insight into the factors that shape the company’s financial results.

Spending Trends Remain Supportive Hai said the macroeconomic environment remains supportive of both consumer and business spending. He pointed to continued U.S. spending on travel, movies, dining and entertainment, while describing travel demand as broad-based across both affluent and mass-market consumers.

Innovative ETF Strategies That Are Paying Off This SummerWhile the war in the Middle East has created uncertainty and affected regional travel patterns, Hai said Mastercard’s diversification across markets, payment flows and revenue sources helps support resilience. He said operating metrics during the first four weeks of August were in line with the first four weeks of July, including cross-border travel and non-travel activity.

On cross-border spending, Hai said Mastercard divides activity into travel and card-not-present, excluding travel. He said the Middle East conflict had a negative impact on inbound and outbound travel in April, but the year-to-date effect has been less negative than the company expected. Outbound travel recovery continued through the second and third quarters, he said.

Travelers have adjusted destinations rather than stopped traveling, according to Hai. He cited Canadians traveling less to the U.S. and more to Europe, as well as Europeans traveling to Asia outside the UEFA season.

Non-travel cross-border activity includes traditional e-commerce, recurring subscriptions, digital assets and digital-wallet funding. Hai said emerging spending categories, including AI-platform subscriptions, crypto purchases and transfers into wallets such as Revolut and Wise, are contributing to growth. He also cited crypto-related spending from Venezuela after U.S. dollars became available to consumers there.

Diversification and UAE Domestic-Switch Agreement Hai said Mastercard sees continued opportunity to convert cash transactions into digital payments, including in developed markets. He noted that cash remains close to 50% of retail commerce in Japan, according to his remarks.

He identified three pillars of diversification:

Geographic expansion, including opportunities in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa. New payment flows, such as business-to-business payments, cross-border remittances and person-to-person transfers. Services, which Hai said account for 40% of Mastercard’s revenue mix. Hai highlighted Mastercard’s arrangement with the Central Bank of the UAE as a model for addressing payment sovereignty initiatives. Mastercard is becoming the technology provider for the UAE’s domestic switch and has established a joint venture with an entity owned by the central bank, he said.

Under the arrangement, debit transactions are mandated to run through the domestic switch. Mastercard will serve as the underlying technology provider for the domestic solution, which uses the Jaywan domestic brand. Hai said Mastercard expects to process almost 100% of UAE debit transactions once implementation is completed, while also providing services including cybersecurity.

“We are the alternative in the context of the sovereignty agenda,” Hai said, adding that Mastercard views the approach as strategically important and potentially replicable in other markets.

Services, Cybersecurity and Stablecoins Services represent nearly 40% of Mastercard’s net revenue, Hai said. About 60% of services are attached to the company’s network, while the remaining portion includes data and insights, consulting and advisory services, and merchant loyalty offerings.

Hai said artificial intelligence could support longer-term services growth, particularly as AI increases the sophistication of fraud, scams and cybersecurity threats. Mastercard’s security offering spans cybersecurity, identity, fraud prevention and scam prevention, he said.

He pointed to the company’s Recorded Future acquisition as an example. Recorded Future provides intelligence related to the dark web, compromised credentials, phone numbers and addresses, according to Hai. Mastercard has developed a network-attached product called Threat Intelligence that is distributed and priced through its network, he said.

Mastercard closed its acquisition of BVNK on Aug. 3, the same date Hai became CFO. Hai said BVNK adds stablecoin interoperability capabilities and supports a white-label wallet that Mastercard’s customers can use to store, convert, receive and send stablecoin assets.

He said stablecoins may have more relevant use cases in business payments, cross-border remittances, person-to-person transactions and tokenized assets than in traditional person-to-merchant payments. Mastercard intends to participate in the space even if stablecoins represent only a portion of payment flows, he said.

China and Competitive Discipline Hai said Mastercard will remain acquisitive when opportunities support its growth strategy, whether by expanding the core payments business, adding services and new payment capabilities, accelerating market entry, or bringing in talent.

On competition, he said Mastercard seeks to win deals profitably rather than “at any cost.” The company uses services, new products and customer co-creation to differentiate beyond pricing and incentives, he said.

In China, Hai said Mastercard’s domestic license, granted two to three years ago, remains a medium-term revenue opportunity. The company is working with Chinese banks on credit and debit issuance, expanding acceptance, and working with digital companies including Alipay, WeChat Pay, Meituan and JD.com.

Hai said international cardholders can now use tap-and-go transit access in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chengdu. He said Mastercard’s expanding domestic acceptance and issuance capabilities in China are helping support both Chinese consumers’ outbound travel and acceptance for foreign visitors using Mastercard cards in the country.

About Mastercard (NYSE:MA)Mastercard Incorporated NYSE: MA is a global technology company that operates a payments network connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses. The company facilitates electronic payment transactions, including credit, debit, prepaid and commercial payments, by providing the infrastructure used to authorize, clear and settle transactions.

Mastercard's products and services include its Mastercard-branded payment cards, digital payment tools, contactless payment technology and payment solutions for businesses and governments.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected].

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In the latest close session, MasterCard (MA - Free Report) was down 1.11% at $579.21. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.38%. On the other hand, the Dow registered a loss of 0.51%, and the technology-centric Nasdaq decreased by 0.29%.

Coming into today, shares of the processor of debit and credit card payments had gained 1.69% in the past month. In that same time, the Business Services sector gained 1.03%, while the S&P 500 gained 2.08%.

The upcoming earnings release of MasterCard will be of great interest to investors. On that day, MasterCard is projected to report earnings of $5.12 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 16.89%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $9.62 billion, up 11.86% from the prior-year quarter.

Looking at the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $19.86 per share and revenue of $37.24 billion. These totals would mark changes of +16.75% and +13.57%, respectively, from last year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for MasterCard should also be noted by investors. Such recent modifications usually signify the changing landscape of near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the business and profitability.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-term stock moves. To take advantage of this, we've established the Zacks Rank, an exclusive model that considers these estimated changes and delivers an operational rating system.

The Zacks Rank system, spanning from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), boasts an impressive track record of outperformance, audited externally, with #1 ranked stocks yielding an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.38% higher. MasterCard is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

From a valuation perspective, MasterCard is currently exchanging hands at a Forward P/E ratio of 29.5. This denotes a premium relative to the industry average Forward P/E of 13.49.

We can additionally observe that MA currently boasts a PEG ratio of 1.68. The PEG ratio is akin to the commonly utilized P/E ratio, but this measure also incorporates the company's anticipated earnings growth rate. The Financial Transaction Services industry had an average PEG ratio of 0.88 as trading concluded yesterday.

The Financial Transaction Services industry is part of the Business Services sector. At present, this industry carries a Zacks Industry Rank of 164, placing it within the bottom 34% of over 250 industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Remember to apply Zacks.com to follow these and more stock-moving metrics during the upcoming trading sessions.

In this Part 2 episode of Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing, Motley Fool CEO Tom Gardner speaks with Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach, who discusses:

The company's Agent Pay protocol.Why machine-to-machine payments could transform B2B commerce.Why Mastercard just acquired the world's largest stablecoin platform.What the AI revolution really means for employmentWhy proprietary transaction data is Mastercard's deepest competitive moatHow he stays sharp running a $500 billion company.To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.

A full transcript is below.

This podcast was recorded on Aug. 16, 2026.

Michael Miebach: Who sits in the middle and drives interoperability, make sure all of this connects, and is not a plate full of spaghettis? Mastercard. We're closing this quarter in acquisition of a company by the name of BVNK, which is a large stablecoin platform out there to connect all of this for the world.

Bart Shannon: That was Michael Miebach, CEO of Mastercard, on why the fragmented world of stablecoins and digital payments needs someone to hold it all together. Why Mastercard intends to be that someone. I'm Motley Fool producer Bart Shannon. Last week, in part 1, Tom Gardner and Michael covered how Mastercard's payment network works, the $15.6 trillion cybersecurity threat, and why stablecoins are more opportunity than threat. This week, in part 2, they get into the future AI shopping agents, machine-to-machine payments, how Mastercard thinks about capital allocation, and what the AI revolution really means for employment and consumer spending. Hope you enjoy.

Tom Gardner: Let's talk about agentic commerce, where AI becomes the customer's main relationship, and that transaction then starts to look for the cheapest alternative. Maybe we can talk about AP4M, as well. I don't know if GPT should have allowed this, but I created an image here of AP4M. I actually put the Mastercard logo in the center there, which makes it questionable whether GPT should be able to place logos. But anyway, I'd like to hear a little bit about AP4M, and I will stop. 

Michael Miebach: Let's talk about agentic commerce first and hang it up a little bit higher before we come to AP4M, and I can also decipher what that actually means when we get there. Agentic commerce. What's actually happening is in straightforward online commerce, what happens today is, you might go and go to your favorite search website and just put in whatever you're looking for. We give you a bunch of sponsored links, and then it gives you a set of more links, and then you pick where you go, or you might be just irritated by all of that and just go straight to your favorite marketplace. Those are all things that we probably have experienced as consumers. You just referred to an LLM, where you created this lovely image just now; ChatGPT is the example that you used.

What you might want to do today is get a potentially better and more holistic answer for whatever you're trying to do. Let's say you want to go on a camping trip and say, What do I need for a camping trip? It gives you 15 things. Because it knows your history, it could have given you 25 things, but it already knows you have a tent. It's not offering the tent to you. It's giving all the things you don't have for that particular destination actually makes sense. If you have that result, then imagine you still have to go to every single website and say I'm going to find that tent now, or I'm going to find that little cooker or whatever the ingredient is, and then you're all over the place, and you have just wasted half a day planning your trip. Wouldn't it be much easier if you could check out right in that moment on whatever that recommendation is from the favorite LLM of your choice and say, I'm going to check out right there? I'm going to delegate the checkout to the agent through an agent, which in this case, would be the LLM that does all the checkout for you.

It uses a Mastercard behind it, and everything works. Would be so much easier. For that to happen, we need to recognize that suddenly there's an entity in between that never existed before; that's the agent. Then, back to cybersecurity, how do we know that this agent is actually an agent that is known, and it’s not a fraudulent agent? That the agent is actually what you're trying to do, buy stuff for your camping trip, but not ordering something else, or that the agent actually makes mistakes or not. It orders two grills instead of one. How do you prove that in the end, when your card would be debited? Those are all things that we thought about today in the world of Mastercard payments. Straightforward payments work very easily. You have a chargeback. You're always protected; you say that never happened. I never ordered that, and you just undo the whole thing.

We created Agent Pay. Agent Pay is basically a protocol that ensures that an agent is recognized as accredited as an additional party in the ecosystem. There could be an LLM, or it could be a very large retailer that has an agent for all their brands, etc., so that's registered. The next thing is that this transaction is fully tokenized. What that means is every bit of data associated with this transaction is captured, so it can be used as a proof point to say this is exactly what the consumer wanted to do. Then the various parties in the ecosystem, the bank of the merchant, and the bank of the consumer, everybody knows, and it flows the same way as it does today at a Mastercard transaction. It's very technical, so I'm going to keep it at that level. All of this is what is happening, and the ecosystem is ready, and these transactions are starting to flow now. For us, is this a growth opportunity? It is because tokenization is a service that we sell. All these transactions are fully tokenized, which is very different than the real world today, where not every transaction is tokenized just yet, so that's a growth opportunity. The related cybersecurity solutions for these transactions is a growth opportunity for us, etc. Will people buy a lot more full bottom line? Will they buy five tents instead of one? No. It's a bit of a replacement of existing flows, but with additional service opportunity for Mastercard.

Tom Gardner: Am I wrong to just insert one thing? Am I wrong to think that it might lead to more transactions, because it becomes so much more frictionless? Once I have a representative acting on my behalf, I knew things that I wouldn't have found myself.

Michael Miebach: It could. You most likely will have a better recommendation, so your propensity to buy something might increase. The other thing for us is there is a transaction growth multiplier. If you would have instead today gone to a marketplace and have bought everything from one merchant, vis-a-vis go to different merchants and have different individual transactions, so there's a transaction multiplier. We basically facilitate transactions. That's our business model. It has that kind of an impact for us, but it's still overall GDP will not dramatically rise because you still need one tent or not five. But now, here's the other side of this. This is very interesting. We're coming to AP4M, which means Mastercard Agent Pay for Machines. If you think in the context of B2B commerce, one company with another company, think about the chief procurement officer buying stuff on behalf of the company from some provider, some supplier. Today, this is often happening account to account. Invoices are being paid, all of that. But imagine the digital content that a company is buying; that could be APIs, that could be digital content, there could be data, there could be compute power, it could be all of those things. Why would you send an invoice and do that? You will want to do this, as you use your compute power. I need 10% more; you dial it up, you dial it down, and you pay as you need. If you pay as you need, your working capital efficiency is going to dramatically increase. How do we get a payment ecosystem that can facilitate always-on high-velocity microfractions of a dollar kind of payments that don't exist today? That's what the Chief Procurement Officer wants. It's total optimization.

That's what the treasury wants, what the CFO wants to really use the capital of the company in the most efficient way. We've launched just very recently, the Agent Pay for Machines Protocol, which basically is a further evolution of Agent Pay, which I described a bit earlier, and it just facilitates all of that. I spare you the technical details because it goes even further, but it does facilitate immediate high-velocity micro tickets between different machines, add machine speed, add machine scale with the same protections and with everything else that Mastercard promises behind them. The underlying rails and infrastructure are likely to be different than card rails. It could be stablecoins. It could be other rails for that. That is essentially going to come down to the choices of companies and what they want to use. We're pretty agnostic about that, but the protocol to keep the trust and interoperable layer on top is critical.

Here's the last thing on stablecoins. Agent Pay, stablecoins, agentic commerce; there's this whole new way of doing commerce going forward. If you just play that out over the next year, you're going to have multiple chains. You're going to have multiple stablecoin currencies that might be powering all of this in the background, along with card systems and account-to-account. You have this very complicated world. You're company A, I'm company B, and we just want to do machine-to-machine payments with each other. But your choice is stablecoin A, and my choice is stablecoin B. How are you going to pay me, and how am I going to receive that stablecoin from you? Who sits in the middle and drives interoperability? Make sure all of this connects, and it's not a plate full of spaghettis. Mastercard. We're closing this quarter and acquisition of a company by the name of BVNK, which is a large stablecoin platform out there to connect all of this for the world. That's what we do in cards today. That's what we will do in the brave world of stablecoins.

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Tom Gardner: There's so many ways to express what Mastercard is doing. Just one question on the value-added services and the work that you're doing. Should we think of Mastercard as partnering even more deeply with a variety of companies to bring these systems forward, or will you continue to be acquisitive, a balance between the two? What's the process of moving deeper and deeper into new technologies like agentic commerce, all the cybersecurity challenges, stablecoins, etc.?

Michael Miebach: Our approach to this is when you take our business a decade ago, so very focused on card payments, very focused on consumer card payments. Today, it is consumers, businesses, it's government in terms of customer set. It's much more global. It's all forms of payments, as we discussed; it's also stablecoins, it's also account-to-account. It's a whole range of value-added services. We talked about the cybersecurity part of that. There's a range of loyalty solutions, consumer engagement solutions, personalization solution, anything that powers trade. When you think that, our approach to this is bio build. That's always the first question. We never go out and say the valuation cycle. Everything is cheap right now. Let's go and buy something. It's very strategy-driven. We say we need more capability on the personalization side. Our customers, large retailers, what are they trying to do this time to cut through the clutter and the noise that exists in social media and everywhere to get the right offer to their right customer at the right time, through the right channel. We do this at scale. We have a lot of consumer behavior data, not personalized. I should add.

We bought one of the best personalization companies in the world. Why did we buy versus build? We just don't know much of personalization. I said, Why don't we buy the best partner? But when we buy a company like that, we can leverage our huge data set, our global reach, and our network to take their solution and push it to our network to reach all those customers that we have around the world. That's dramatic synergy. M&A and acquisition works very well in such scenarios. There are other things that are very close to our existing payment solution. We're much better off building them ourselves. We will continue to be very acquisitive at the same time. We're always very good stewards. We try to be very good stewards of our shareholder capital. Let's say we're actually better off building this ourselves.

Tom Gardner: You may or may not know that we've built a system at the Motley Fool where we score every public company. We have an LLM-based AI-powered system with coders around the world working with our investors to evaluate companies across leadership, the quality of their products, their competitive advantages, the valuation of the business, the financial capabilities. Out of 4,700 companies scored in the U.S., Mastercard is No. 14. [OVERLAPPING] Yes, you're probably wondering why you're not [OVERLAPPING].

Michael Miebach: We should be in a top-10 company. A top-five company.

Tom Gardner: I subscribe to your report there. We will send it to you without requiring your subscription.

Michael Miebach: Thank you very much.

Tom Gardner: But capital allocation is such an amazing strength of the business, and you have a lot of options with the amazing rates of return on invested capital. But I'm just wondering how you make the decisions about let's take an example of buybacks. I think you did additional buybacks this quarter. I could pack seven questions together here for investors about this, but there was a moment in time where the stock fell to $470 or so; now it's $570. There's a subordinate question to how people should think as investors, as you might know, retail investors, and a lot of professional investors transact too frequently and don't realize the capability of that organization to create value for you over long periods of time. I'm just curious how the share buyback process happens in a given quarter, how you determine how much to put against it, and whether the movement of the price in that quarter matters.

Michael Miebach: The first thing that I would say when it comes to our capital allocation principles is always the first thing is reinvest in the business. That's the best thing that we would do, organic/inorganic, we just talked about that. Preference: start with organic. Reinvesting in the business, the first thing, ensuring a strong balance sheet, is the next thing because I mentioned a payment guarantee earlier that we have for every Mastercard payment, so that requires a healthy balance sheet, etc. When it comes to buybacks, we're very opportunistic about that. We're not in the business of buybacks. We do that when it makes sense. We had a DAI trade dominating the market, and we were a source of funds as a large high-cap company. While we have a lot to do and invest a lot in AI, we're not AI trading in AI infrastructure. We're all about applied artificial intelligence, and so we were a source of funds. The stock price was a little more volatile than I would have preferred. But it did exactly what you just described. I was at 470; now it's at 570, and we're getting closer in the right direction again, which is very good. But we were opportunistic. We said we believe in the continued growth of the company. We know exactly what we're doing. We have a clear strategy, we're driving operating leverage for the long term, etc., so we're going to do some buybacks. That's our approach. This is always a tool that is used for such times. But it's not one that we use beyond that logic.

Tom Gardner: As you might imagine, I have more questions than this, but respecting your time, because 40 minutes was our target together, I want to just ask one question about employment. I would say employment looks relatively strong, wages look relatively strong, but at the same time, you have Elon Musk interviewed earlier this week saying we are five years away from AI exceeding the sum total of human intelligence, and virtually every job that I can see, paraphrasing Musk, is something that can be done as effectively and less expensively by artificial intelligence and breakthroughs in these technologies. What are you simulating forward? How far are you trying to see forward as the CEO of a company that requires that you're thinking as far forward as you can? What do you think about employment dislocations and wage deflation? Last little portion of the question: what time we live in that the largest technology companies with the highest levels of cash flows and the strongest balance sheets in human history are actually thinning their staff? We're seeing the workflows change, and we're seeing employment levels change even at the most prosperous companies. What is this indicating? What will it mean for consumer spending? How do you think about it within the context of Mastercard

Michael Miebach: Very important topic, Tom, and I'm glad you're raising it. Clearly, when you think about artificial intelligence and what it could do, I think it's good to have a mindset that this is technology that needs to be explored if it's deployed in the right way. It could drive a path to prosperity and growth. That's all generally the direction that I think and that we think as well. It has downsides. We talked about AI-driven risk, cyber risk in particular. There's always with everything up and down sides. As technology is evolving, one thing we have to do, because, clearly, certainly in our industry, but in most other industries, comes down to having the best talent. We're going to have to upskill our talent. There's significant focus on making AI tools available and ensuring that we can upgrade the jobs in the company for people who leverage AI to do an even better job and do the things that machines cannot do. Human-centered AI application is the focus that we're driving and saying, "Use this tool to do a better job and don't do the redundant stuff." Stuff. I've just created myself an AI assistant for emails. I don't have to deal with that any longer. That's great. I still take a look at it, but it does take some of the menial task away from that. I think we need to be very thoughtful about that. Currently, when I see where our customers are on that. The number of customers that want to talk to us about agentic commerce, stablecoins, all the topics that we think about.

We use a lot of AI to prepare for those conversations because there's a lot of public data that's out there. But those customers, there's a lot out there about the technologies available. We bring it together, and we save ourselves a lot of time to have more engagement with our customers on the topics that actually matter. Artificial intelligence and cybersecurity: 180 billion transactions a year. How do we keep them safe, leveraging GenAI and threat intelligence data? It's all about technology. That was always about technology and Mastercard. That's not about people, because we've always been a network company, actually, with a very light. If you think about our market cap, we think we're only 40,000 people across 220 countries and territories. Our industry is not the one way you would start to think fundamentally, rethinking that. If you think about some of our services, who will win, and who will have a challenge in the world of AI? The companies that set themselves apart are the ones that can use all types of different models, but have proprietary data that they can feed the model with and then drive their business forward. We're one of the companies that have the most unique data sets, transactional data. Those are all things that I think give us longevity and give us the right to a license to play, and we're going to push forward on that basis. If you had the chance or will have the chance to listen to our earnings call today, the last thing I said on our earnings call today is I thank our employees for driving all those numbers and that output for us and our customer.

Tom Gardner: Last question, running a company with a market cap of $500 billion with as much change. Every business is going through so much change, but I would say, having gotten in no leadership at Starbucks over the last 25 or 30 years, there's a lot of continuity of what they're doing every day. They know what product they're putting out. There's not as many different decisions to be made on acquisitions all the way through to the technologies you're choosing your workforce, etc. What is your approach to personal health to sustaining yourself and your leadership team? Because obviously, the top 15 people at Mastercard are connected into the business 24/7; in some ways, have to be. What is your approach to unplugging to sustaining this level with output? Obviously, we're very happy and hope you'll be CEO for the next 25 years. How are you going to do that?

Michael Miebach: I think it's a really important point. The first is to recognize how important that point actually is. Across our leadership team, yes, it is 24/7. At the same time, it's not 24/7 for everybody all the time. We're a global leadership team, and that's a good thing. Somebody is awake over in Singapore, and they can do their part. We manage in a somewhat balanced fashion around that. Divide and conquer is very clear. This is a strong team, and this is true for the broader population at Mastercard. I have to say, I personally value vacation. I think it's a really important thing. I was having a conversation with somebody that works directly in my team, and I said, "Hey, what are you planning for this summer?" He said I might take a few days off. I said you should consider maybe taking two weeks off. Maybe this is growing up in Europe. I don't know what it is, but I find that as important.

But then you have to find these other moments where you just can just think about something different. I'm involved in a set of activities outside of the companies on the nonprofit side. I just find that's important; it takes my mind off. It's a source of energy. Then, of course, being a good German, a lot of walking and a lot of talking. With my wife, these are things like that, and I mentioned it to you at the outset before we started. I do like motorcycling and skiing, those two activities that focus your mind completely. At the end of the day, you're physically very tired, and you don't think about anything else much on that day. Different ways, different approaches for everybody. One thing I regret which is I don't read as much as I probably should. I read much more summaries and newsletters, and I have taken on the last couple of long weekends that came around to actually grab a book again, and I find that was a really good idea. I'll try to do more of that.

Tom Gardner: Same. That's a commitment. We'll hold each other accountable, too. Michael, thank you so much for this time. We began investing in Mastercard maybe it was around 2013 with a stock below 50. We have [OVERLAPPING] more than 25 investments. Yes, we've had a good run, and we're very thankful we loved the work of Ajay Banga, obviously. We didn't even talk about your succession in the middle of COVID. That was fascinating. That's got to be a good chapter of at least one book that you write at some point. But I don't want to take any more of your time. Thank you so much, particularly on Earnings Day for giving us time at the Motley Fool. We wish you the very best and everyone on your team and have a great next staycation.

Michael Miebach: Thanks, Tom, and thank you for having me on.

Bart Shannon: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. For the Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing team, I'm producer Bart Shannon. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

Calamos Advisors LLC decreased its position in Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA – Free Report) by 3.8% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 238,960 shares of the credit services provider’s stock after selling 9,493 shares during the period. Calamos Advisors LLC’s holdings in Mastercard were worth $122,730,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Mastercard by 0.6% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 79,897,854 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $45,612,087,000 after purchasing an additional 466,514 shares during the period. J. Stern & Co. LLP boosted its holdings in Mastercard by 53,535.0% in the 4th quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 72,597,097 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $41,444,231,000 after purchasing an additional 72,461,743 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in Mastercard by 2.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 36,580,374 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $20,807,283,000 after purchasing an additional 997,536 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Mastercard by 1.7% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 20,686,605 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $11,773,153,000 after purchasing an additional 349,369 shares during the period. Finally, Capital International Investors raised its stake in shares of Mastercard by 4.4% during the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 17,964,658 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $10,256,368,000 after buying an additional 759,584 shares in the last quarter. 97.28% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Mastercard Price Performance MA stock opened at $580.26 on Monday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $538.80 and a 200-day moving average of $517.80. Mastercard Incorporated has a 12-month low of $464.52 and a 12-month high of $601.77. The company has a current ratio of 1.06, a quick ratio of 1.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.96. The company has a market cap of $508.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.92, a PEG ratio of 1.74 and a beta of 0.71.

Mastercard (NYSE:MA – Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The credit services provider reported $5.04 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.77 by $0.27. Mastercard had a return on equity of 239.99% and a net margin of 46.34%.The business had revenue of $9.28 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.08 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $4.15 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 14.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts expect that Mastercard Incorporated will post 19.86 EPS for the current fiscal year. Mastercard Announces Dividend The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 7th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 9th were given a dividend of $0.87 per share. This represents a $3.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.6%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 9th. Mastercard’s payout ratio is presently 19.14%.

Analyst Ratings Changes Several analysts have recently commented on MA shares. Cantor Fitzgerald raised their price target on Mastercard from $650.00 to $695.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, August 3rd. Piper Sandler started coverage on Mastercard in a research report on Monday, June 29th. They issued an “overweight” rating and a $597.00 price objective for the company. Raymond James Financial reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $632.00 price objective on shares of Mastercard in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Clear Str raised Mastercard to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 16th. Finally, Barclays boosted their target price on shares of Mastercard from $640.00 to $660.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have issued a Buy rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $661.93.

View Our Latest Research Report on MA

Mastercard News Summary Here are the key news stories impacting Mastercard this week:

Positive Sentiment: Mastercard is positioning its network for “agentic payments,” in which artificial-intelligence agents make purchases for consumers. Its participation in the Agentic Payments Alliance and CEO Michael Miebach’s comments suggest the company is working to establish standards and capture transaction volume from this emerging market. How Mastercard CEO is preparing for a world where AI agents do the shopping Positive Sentiment: Mastercard’s latest quarterly results showed earnings per share of $5.04 and revenue of $9.28 billion, exceeding analyst estimates. Revenue increased 14.1% year over year, reinforcing the company’s growth and profitability profile. Neutral Sentiment: Analyst sentiment remains favorable, with a consensus “Buy” rating and an average price target of $661.93. However, valuation assessments are mixed: some intrinsic-value models indicate upside, while earnings-based measures suggest MA trades at a premium. Can Mastercard stay cheap as AI payments expand? Neutral Sentiment: Mastercard appointed Yasemin Bedir as president of its Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region. The change could support regional expansion, but no immediate financial impact was announced. Mastercard appoints Yasemin Bedir as EEMEA president Negative Sentiment: A reported UK legal ruling could make millions of people eligible for approximately £70 in compensation related to Mastercard card-fee claims. The potential financial liability and scope of the case remain unclear, but the development adds litigation risk. Mastercard ruling as millions could get compensation Negative Sentiment: Chief Business Officer Sachin J. Mehra sold 8,444 shares for roughly $4.87 million across August 19–20. The trades were conducted under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan, reducing their significance as a discretionary bearish signal, although they may weigh modestly on sentiment. Mastercard insider trading filing Insider Buying and Selling In other Mastercard news, CEO Michael Miebach sold 15,372 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $575.00, for a total value of $8,838,900.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 93,693 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $53,873,475. This represents a 14.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider J. Mehra Sachin sold 1,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $572.07, for a total value of $572,070.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 39,916 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $22,834,746.12. This represents a 2.44% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 71,357 shares of company stock valued at $40,637,262 in the last three months. 0.09% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Mastercard Company Profile (Free Report)

Mastercard Incorporated is a global payments technology company that operates a network connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 200 countries and territories. The company facilitates electronic payments and transaction processing for credit, debit and prepaid card products carrying the Mastercard brand, while also providing a range of payment-related services to issuers, acquirers and merchants. Its technology and network enable authorization, clearing and settlement of payments and support a broad set of use cases including point-of-sale, e-commerce and mobile payments.

Beyond core transaction processing, Mastercard offers a suite of value-added services such as fraud and risk management, identity and authentication tools, tokenization and digital wallet support, cross-border and commercial payment solutions, and data analytics and consulting services for merchants and financial partners.

See Also Five stocks we like better than Mastercard VIG, VYM, and VYMI: Which Vanguard Dividend ETF Is Right for You? 3 Closed-End Funds to Maximize Dividend Payments Rocket Lab’s Sell-Off Is Fading—Is It Finally Safe to Buy? $27 Billion in Buybacks: 3 Stocks Betting Their Strong Runs Aren’t Over Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MA? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA – Free Report).

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Analyst IMS Investment Management Services Ltd. lowered its holdings in shares of Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA – Free Report) by 54.7% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 2,707 shares of the credit services provider’s stock after selling 3,274 shares during the period. Analyst IMS Investment Management Services Ltd.’s holdings in Mastercard were worth $1,391,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Robinswood Financial LLC purchased a new position in shares of Mastercard in the first quarter valued at about $25,000. E Fund Management Hong Kong Co. Ltd. increased its holdings in Mastercard by 820.0% in the 4th quarter. E Fund Management Hong Kong Co. Ltd. now owns 46 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 41 shares during the last quarter. Strive Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in Mastercard in the 4th quarter worth $27,000. Hyposwiss Advisors SA purchased a new stake in Mastercard in the 4th quarter worth $29,000. Finally, First Pacific Financial boosted its holdings in shares of Mastercard by 113.8% during the 1st quarter. First Pacific Financial now owns 62 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 33 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 97.28% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Mastercard In other news, insider Linda Pistecchia Kirkpatrick sold 4,280 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $570.31, for a total transaction of $2,440,926.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 31,179 shares in the company, valued at $17,781,695.49. This trade represents a 12.07% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider J. Mehra Sachin sold 1,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $572.07, for a total transaction of $572,070.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 39,916 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $22,834,746.12. The trade was a 2.44% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 71,357 shares of company stock worth $40,637,262 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.09% of the company’s stock.

Mastercard Stock Performance NYSE MA opened at $580.26 on Friday. Mastercard Incorporated has a fifty-two week low of $464.52 and a fifty-two week high of $601.77. The firm has a market capitalization of $508.31 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.92, a PEG ratio of 1.72 and a beta of 0.72. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $538.80 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $518.06. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.96, a quick ratio of 1.06 and a current ratio of 1.06. Mastercard (NYSE:MA – Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The credit services provider reported $5.04 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.77 by $0.27. The firm had revenue of $9.28 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.08 billion. Mastercard had a net margin of 46.34% and a return on equity of 239.99%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 14.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $4.15 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Mastercard Incorporated will post 19.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Mastercard Dividend Announcement The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 7th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 9th were issued a dividend of $0.87 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 9th. This represents a $3.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.6%. Mastercard’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 19.14%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of brokerages recently commented on MA. Raymond James Financial reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $632.00 price target on shares of Mastercard in a report on Friday, July 31st. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on Mastercard from $664.00 to $667.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 31st. Clear Str upgraded shares of Mastercard to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 16th. Robert W. Baird raised their target price on shares of Mastercard from $660.00 to $680.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 7th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their price target on shares of Mastercard from $650.00 to $695.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, August 3rd. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have given a Buy rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $661.93.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on MA

Trending Headlines about Mastercard Here are the key news stories impacting Mastercard this week:

Positive Sentiment: Mastercard is positioning its network for “agentic payments,” in which artificial-intelligence agents make purchases for consumers. Its participation in the Agentic Payments Alliance and CEO Michael Miebach’s comments suggest the company is working to establish standards and capture transaction volume from this emerging market. How Mastercard CEO is preparing for a world where AI agents do the shopping Positive Sentiment: Mastercard’s latest quarterly results showed earnings per share of $5.04 and revenue of $9.28 billion, exceeding analyst estimates. Revenue increased 14.1% year over year, reinforcing the company’s growth and profitability profile. Neutral Sentiment: Analyst sentiment remains favorable, with a consensus “Buy” rating and an average price target of $661.93. However, valuation assessments are mixed: some intrinsic-value models indicate upside, while earnings-based measures suggest MA trades at a premium. Can Mastercard stay cheap as AI payments expand? Neutral Sentiment: Mastercard appointed Yasemin Bedir as president of its Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region. The change could support regional expansion, but no immediate financial impact was announced. Mastercard appoints Yasemin Bedir as EEMEA president Negative Sentiment: A reported UK legal ruling could make millions of people eligible for approximately £70 in compensation related to Mastercard card-fee claims. The potential financial liability and scope of the case remain unclear, but the development adds litigation risk. Mastercard ruling as millions could get compensation Negative Sentiment: Chief Business Officer Sachin J. Mehra sold 8,444 shares for roughly $4.87 million across August 19–20. The trades were conducted under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan, reducing their significance as a discretionary bearish signal, although they may weigh modestly on sentiment. Mastercard insider trading filing Mastercard Profile (Free Report)

Mastercard Incorporated is a global payments technology company that operates a network connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 200 countries and territories. The company facilitates electronic payments and transaction processing for credit, debit and prepaid card products carrying the Mastercard brand, while also providing a range of payment-related services to issuers, acquirers and merchants. Its technology and network enable authorization, clearing and settlement of payments and support a broad set of use cases including point-of-sale, e-commerce and mobile payments.

Beyond core transaction processing, Mastercard offers a suite of value-added services such as fraud and risk management, identity and authentication tools, tokenization and digital wallet support, cross-border and commercial payment solutions, and data analytics and consulting services for merchants and financial partners.

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In this episode of Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing, Motley Fool CEO Tom Gardner sits down with Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach to discuss:

Why machine-to-machine payments could transform B2B commerce.Why Mastercard just acquired the world's largest stablecoin platform. What the AI revolution really means for employment.Why proprietary transaction data is Mastercard's deepest competitive moat.How he stays sharp running a $500 billion company.To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.

A full transcript is below.

This podcast was recorded on Aug. 9, 2026.

Michael Miebach: Looking forward a few years, by 2030, the amount of fraud and cyber risk-driven damage is going to amount to $15.6 trillion. If cyber risk were a country, that would be the third-largest economy in the world.

Bart Shannon: That was Michael Miebach, CEO of Mastercard, on the scale of the cybersecurity threat facing the global economy right now. I'm Motley Fool producer Bart Shannon. Mastercard is one of the most admired companies we follow, a business that has quietly become as much a cybersecurity and data company as a payments network. Motley Fool CEO Tom Gardner sat down with Michael on the day of Mastercard’s second quarter earnings to talk through how the payment network actually works, why cybersecurity has become one of its most important growth businesses, and what stablecoins really mean for the future of money. We hope you enjoy Part 1.

Tom Gardner: Well, we're really excited here at Motley Fool to have Michael Miebach, the CEO of Mastercard, joining us. On the day of your second quarter earnings, we should probably start there, because I don't think there's much introduction that's needed for Mastercard, although if you talk to the average consumer or talk to even the average investor, they may not understand exactly how your global payments network works. We'll go through a little bit of that, as well, but I do think we should start with second quarter earnings, which showed some pretty remarkable growth, another round of amazing operating margins of the company above 60%. I know cross-border business and your value-added services growth are pretty pleasing to you. Any highlights that you'd like to share with us on a single quarter, a 90-day period, which I know isn't necessarily the best way to measure.

Michael Miebach: First of all, thank you for having me, Tom. I was looking forward to our conversation today. It's been a good quarter and a good engagement with investors today and analysts. You actually hit the highlights just now, so strong volumes. It’s interesting when you look around the world, and you read the headlines, see geopolitical complexity and volatility. Then you see varying impacts on the macroeconomy. In the end, it all balances out with a pretty healthy consumer and continued healthy spending on the consumer and on the business side, which obviously is a big part of our business. That's what we facilitate spending, we're powering the economy and value exchange in all forms so it's good to be in payments at this time.

A few of the topics that we talked about on the call, which you didn't mention is there's a lot of innovation in payments. Right now, there's a lot of competition and payments. The rise of fintech, the rise of stablecoins, the headline of agentic commerce, there is so much going on, and we're at the forefront of all of that, shaping where the future of the digital economy is going, so exciting times for us at Mastercard.

Tom Gardner: It is amazing how much dynamic change there is in the world today and in the marketplace, and yet a very stable, solid performance from companies like Mastercard, again, showing the strength of the consumers you shared. Can we just talk a little bit about the relationship between the bank, the merchant, the cardholder, just to set the table? For example, when we get to stablecoin, we will ask you to define stablecoin because there will be viewers at The Motley Fool that are encountering some of this for the first time. Maybe just walk through a little bit, four billion cardholders, tens of millions of merchants, and how the network interacts.

Michael Miebach: Just to stick to the facts, 3.7 billion cardholders [OVERLAPPING] that's still a lot. In fact, we are certainly geographically speaking, the most prevalent way to pay around the world, 3.7 billion cards. You talked about the relationship between a consumer and a bank and a shop, wherever you shop for something. Let's take a step back on exactly that. You're going to go, and you're going to buy something. You buy it online, and you buy it in a shop of your choice, and whatever it is, there magically you can either leave the website and the product will be shipped to you, or you can leave the shop and take it with you. Why is that happening? Because there's a payment guarantee in the background, which is issued by Mastercard that says to the merchant, you can let this person go because we will ensure you will be paid.

This all works in a square, so to say, a four-party model between the bank of the consumer and between the bank of the shop. Your bank will take money out of your account, out of your card account, and pass it on to the shop's bank, and then the shop gets paid. This is how this works. Now, if you think about this in 3.7 billion times in 220 countries and territories, that is massive scale, and that is massive complexity. Regulatory rules are different around the world. Infrastructure is different around the world, and we took 60 years to build this amazing system that powers the digital economy around the world. That is what is at the heart of when you pull out your Mastercard it happens behind. Now, there's a lot more happening behind because this payment is not only happening. It's happening in a safe way so you're protected.

If you use a Mastercard and you make a payment on a website, and it turns out to be a fake website, that’s one of the cyber risks that we all face today. You're still protected because it was not your fault, so you have a payment guarantee. But in order to ensure that we prevent fraud at the outset, there's a lot of safety and security happening behind the scenes. Trillions of data points will be scanned in nanoseconds to ensure there's the right relationship between you and this merchant. Can you actually be in this place right now? Have you ever done a transaction like that? Are you spending more than you actually have ever done before, et cetera? All of this is happening in the background, and those are the tools that we provide to our customers. The cardholders not our customer. The customer is a bank. The customer could be a merchant. It could be a very large merchant. Walmart or somebody like that, is a partner of ours or a very large bank like JPMorgan here in the U.S., et cetera. Those are our partners, and we provide them with services to make the Mastercard payments, they run with us, safer and smarter and simpler, actually.

Tom Gardner: Thank you. In a way, we should think of it as a trust and security network. For that reason, I'd like to move towards cybersecurity because I know you've made some significant investments. I think I'm not counting this quarter, over $8 billion invested in cybersecurity and fraud. Generative AI is arriving faster, and the tools are upgrading faster than I think anyone was estimating, except for maybe Ray Kurzweil, and they’re finding holes in systems faster. What types of crimes are you seeing that are new? What's Mastercard's unique approach?

Michael Miebach: It's important to talk about cybersecurity, and you put it in the context of artificial intelligence. Now, artificial intelligence is not new, but generative AI is new. Since the launch of ChatGPT first version in the first quarter of 2023, you've seen tremendous progress there, and that's good for productivity. It's good for better user experience, good for many things, but it also empowers the fraudsters and the scammers and the hackers. We're starting to see an arms race. New technology, and you can use this technology to drive exploits and scams. At the same time, you can use this technology to defend, so we have an arms race going on.

When you just think about what's the magnitude of all of this. There is an expectation. Study has been done looking forward a few years, 2030, that by 2030, the amount of fraud and cyber risk-driven damage is going to amount to $15.6 trillion. If cyber risk were a country, that would be the third-largest economy in the world. That's what we're looking at. Now, historically, take the last 10 years, across the financial services industry, in particular, there was a lot of focus put on preventing fraud. We've been always a leader in that. As a payment networks, we're the one that stand out to have invested in cybersecurity earliest and most significantly. Today, we have the broadest portfolio there.

Initially, this all started about defense. A transaction happens, and you're going to decide if you're going to let it through yes or no. Is this a transaction that is really from you or should it not? Should we ask the bank to make some extra cheques? Now if you do this, 3.7 billion card times around the world, 180 billion transactions go through our network.

You really need technology in a very big way to do that, to power that and drive that security level up. Now, banks get attacked, they get hacked and all of that. Governments get attacked and hacked, individual consumers get hacked and attacked. The system is becoming under threat from all angles, and the weakest link in the chain is usually where the hackers and the scammers get in. We need to erect our defenses and do even more to prevent all of this to happen and protect cardholders and our customers and governments and so forth.

How do you do that? What we essentially need to do is moving from defense to offense. That's where our last investments have been in threat intelligence. If I can tell you, as the CEO of a bank, you are under attack from this consortium, they're going after this fraud to attack you and your customers, and here's what you need to do to prevent that. You can do something about this. If I tell you, you're going to have to defend against every threat vector there is, that is almost impossible to do. Threat Intelligence is the last investment that we've made. We bought the world's largest independent threat intelligence company at the end of 2024, recorded future, and they now top up. Vast portfolio of fraud management, identity solutions and cyber solutions that we have with this proactive defense approach. This is what's going on. This is what sets us apart in the world of payments, but not only payments because we provide cybersecurity solutions at large today.

Tom Gardner: Was it always right to think in human civilization, or is it even more correct to think that we're permanently at financial war of some sort worldwide across state actors, non-state actors, organized crime? It's a continual never-ending battle. Is that an accurate view of the world or not?

Michael Miebach: I think that the general statement, this is going to continue be a fight between the good people and the bad people. I think it's very much true that it's broader and more consistent, and the latest technology will be used is also true. What is even more true and which is a good thing is that governments and private sector are very clear about this. We are moving from every sector and every company doing their own thing to the private sector, working much closer together. It's not just about the financial companies working together to prevent in cyber maneuvers and cyber ranges and sharing insights and threats with each other, but it goes across sectors as well. But here's the point. The private sector is really good in making investments and driving the innovation to push back against these scams and frauds, but you do need the enforcement and the regulatory rule, side of the government, as well. Public-private defense is moving very much into the focus. We go and frequent the Munich security conference every year, which is probably the preeminent global security forum there is and this was the big dialogue this year, so we were there. Everybody was clear we need to get more organized across the public sector and the private sector to work together so that's a positive sign.

Tom Gardner: Do you see the Mastercard brand becoming more and more associated with security? With cybersecurity, with threat intelligence? Or that's something that we want to keep invisible and under the radar pretty much and be the relied upon network.

Michael Miebach: Definitely not visible and under the radar because it's a threat to everybody, and we need to ensure that we work together, so it needs to be known what we do. But if I take a step back, Mastercard is a lot of things to a lot of people. Some people call us a card company, other people say it's about payment. Some people say it's about cybersecurity because we're deeply engaged with them on that. It's about all of the above. In the end, it's about where the operating system of the digital economy, an operating system should have a security layer. That's exactly what we do. But it's also as a money movement layer, which is across stable coins and a counter account and cards, we value your hard-earned money. We do all of the above. Then on top of that, this produces a lot of data and gives a lot of insights on where the digital economy is going, and we can help our partners, to our partners’ banks, for example, or large merchants, as I mentioned before, with better business insights to run their business in a better way. All of that, yes, we are big in cybersecurity, but we're so much more.

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Tom Gardner: Actually, I'd like to take a step back and go to some of the broader drivers just to remind us of what's happening at the trend level for transactions worldwide and for Mastercard, specifically. We'll just go with the first one, which is the cash-to-digital-to-card shift. Where are we in that process now? How many transactions were done in cash 10 years ago, Ballpark versus today? And how much further do we have to go in that?

Michael Miebach: It's an answer that is varying by region and by type of payment. No surprise. When I started at this company here in 2010, my first job was about running our business in the Middle East and in Africa. The average cash ratio in Africa was north of 90%. Most of transactions in Sub-Saharan economies were in cash and not digitally. If you go to the Nordics today, Northern Europe, Sweden, Denmark, and so forth, you're going to be, again, north of 90%, but it's north of 90% in terms of digital transactions. The world has come a long way, but in between, there's all shades of gray on where every country is. Take a large European economy like Italy or so, you have somewhere 40-50% of cash transactions. It's north of 50 for the United States. Take other, take emerging markets like Africa still today, you find markets where you're 90%. If you take that lens, that is one lens. But then there's types of payments as well, and types of value exchange, what's going on in the digital economy. Some countries just do not have a particularly good e-commerce ecosystem yet, so a lot of that is still physical.

Of course, with [inaudible] e-commerce, shopping from websites, that's all digital per definition, and you see those countries ahead of the others, so various, various aspects. Take small business as largest employer in the world. Still, the share of physical installations and then physical payments, cash payments is still very high in small business, because the vast majority of them don't have a digital footprint yet. Now, that has dramatically changed post-COVID. A lot of small businesses were the hardest hit by COVID. Nobody went to their shops any longer, and then they weren't online. If you look at some of the data from the United States, what is the share of small businesses that have reopened after COVID, and how much of those — the vast majority of them had a digital as part of the business thereafter. You start to see that catching up. There's so many dimensions around this. To our investors, we say, big part of our growth engine, so to say, is to turn cash and checks and other very basic digital payments into really clever, smart Mastercard payments. That's what we do, and there is plenty of runway around the dimensions that shared with you.

But I give you another dimension of that. A lot of countries have their own payment card system, but it's very basic. Back to cybersecurity, there's many other things you should be doing for your payment system. We come in, and we take those transactions and also put them into the Mastercard network to make it a better payment. The runway in payments and digital payments is tremendous. We charted it out, I think we're somewhere in the trillions of what still the opportunity is out there in terms of payments.

Tom Gardner: Let's talk about cross-border transactions. Travel and non-travel. Mastercard move and the significance of this trend for you.

Michael Miebach: Yes. Cross-border. It's such an interesting term. But basically, let's bring it back to everyday life. You travel, and you go on holiday. It's holiday time where at the end of July, a lot of people are out on the road visiting family, going to their dream destination and then they pay a hotel or they shop a souvenir, whatever it is. It magically still works, despite the fact you're not in your home country. All of the payments I described earlier that happened between the bank and the shop’s bank, and everybody in this four-party model that I described, go across countries then. That's rather complicated to do. That's a big part of what we do today. That's a tremendous value add to economies.

Tourism is a great driver. We've seen it here in the United States, with the World Cup, a lot of people came, and you really saw it in the numbers, quite a significant boost on that. A big part of our business complicated to do. It took us 60 years. Mastercard is 60-years-old. We just celebrated our 20-year IPO anniversary, and we were very busy to build this very large cross-border network, which as of two years now also includes China, where your local Chinese Mastercard will work, and others will work. These are high-octane revenue for us because it's difficult to do, and then we prize for the value that we create. It is not really affecting the consumer that much, but it cuts across the ecosystem because there's a lot of investments that we had to make for that.

Interesting, though, from an investor perspective, we talked a lot about that in your earnings call today. The latest growth rate number here is 12%. If you think about some of the macroeconomic issues that we've been facing, particularly in the Middle East, across those countries, travel was hit. But it rebounded quite significantly, and it's looking pretty solid at this point. Big part of our business, it will for years to come, and we work with our partners to ensure that travel corridors, the marketing works, and here's where you want to go, and then you can get there, and then you have great deals and hotel deals and all these things. There's all stuff that we do behind the scenes with our papas.

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Tom Gardner: Stablecoin, now in some ways, presents some threats to transactions that typically one could expect to go through Mastercard's network. I'm wondering what the impact might be from Stablecoin on international transfers, larger business to business payment. Obviously, I think it's probably going to be a while before that gets down to the level of the consumer purchases or ordinary purchases. I don't think consumers want a lot of different currencies to work with. Maybe I'm misinterpreting that. Please guide us to think more clearly on it. But where is Stablecoin a threat an opportunity for you and obviously the acquisition you made?

Michael Miebach: Stablecoin is an opportunity. It is another way to exchange value. We've always been of the view as a large payment network, as a cybersecurity company, as an insights company, as a data company, whatever term you pick that for value exchange, cards is a really big part of the answer, but it's certainly not the answer for all types of payments. We've been investing since 2016 into a counter account systems where you just pay whatever you pay directly from your bank account into somebody else's bank account, or through a shop, you can just pay the shop into their bank account, et cetera. All of that. We're one of the largest providers of accounter account solutions.

About 12, 13 years ago, Blockchain comes up, and Blockchain and then all of a sudden one of the first payment applications on Blockchain was cryptocurrencies. We're all familiar with Bitcoin, that's pretty cool technology. In terms of facilitating a value exchange, so I'm going to send you a fraction of a bitcoin today. This will happen instantly and you have it and I have it so that's great. We looked at this and say that is good technology. Definitely we should have that. We started to build that out and build out our expertise. Today, the Mastercard network can handle U.S. dollars, any other fee out currency, but it can also handle stablecoins. Which is a cryptocurrency that's backed by fiat, so that's the real distinction here. The store value function of that works, and it can go through our rails. We're very open to that. In fact, what we do is we're not just having the stablecoins run through our system, but we provide the same protections that you expect from your card payment alongside with that, because whenever you deal with Mastercard, you see the two interlocking circlets of our brand, you said I'm protected.

The same should be true for stablecoin. I'm pretty agnostic when it comes to what is the underlying rail. But important point to say, it is really not needed for anybody to go and buy their coffee at the local coffee shop with a stable coin. Why would you do that? There is no problem to solve because the card ecosystem does handle with that. But if you think about remittances or a small business sending some money to another small business, another country where they bought some parts from, that's really complicated today. That's correspondent banking, there's high fees, lack of transparency. You don't really know is the hundred dollars that you sent actually arriving or have two parties in between taking $5 out each and only 90 is arriving, et cetera. We deal with all of that complexity by actually do use stable coin for cross border payments. We think there's B to B cross border opportunity, there's B to B cross border opportunity. But P to M as in everyday purchases, we saw that pretty well, so we're putting our energy where we really think there is a problem to solve. [inaudible] my mindset it's never about the technology. It's about whose problem can we solve.

Tom Gardner: When you say you're pretty agnostic about what rail it runs on, are you completely agnostic, or are there just certain better?

Michael Miebach: No, we're pretty agnostic. But here's the reason. Your follow-up question should be, why? Why are we not completely agnostic? Because we have built 60 years. We have invested 60 years into building the largest acceptance footprint out there. Any merchant and any individual does not want a payment solution, and it can only reach a fraction of the potential endpoints. You want scale. You want predictability. You want protection. Those things are not actually delivered through stablecoins. We still would like to go that route. But there are certain things where I'd say probably it doesn't actually matter that much here. Or it's such a specific use case. We use this technology, and we invest the time to build out those protections over there anyway. That just takes a little bit more time. This answer is true for today and for tomorrow in the near-term future, but in five years, this might look very different, and we're going to certainly be on the forefront of that.

Bart Shannon: That was Part 1 of the discussion. Tune in next week for Part 2. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. For the Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing team, I'm producer Bart Shannon. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

By PYMNTS  |  August 5, 2026

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Mastercard launched a partnership with stablecoin infrastructure network Borderless.xyz, according to a Wednesday (Aug. 5) press release.

The collaboration will examine how Mastercard Crypto Credential’s standards-based framework can support trusted interactions in cross-border stablecoin payments, per the release.

“Stablecoins are increasingly being used to move value across borders, creating new opportunities for faster and more efficient payments,” the release said. “As adoption grows, participants need trusted ways to understand who they are interacting with and whether counterparties have met appropriate standards and requirements.”

With this project, the two companies will look at how Mastercard Crypto Credential can address that challenge by offering “assurance signals” that participants can integrate into their approval, compliance and risk processes, according to the release.

“One of the biggest friction points for stablecoin payment operators isn’t the payments,” Borderless.xyz Co-Founder and CEO Kevin Lehtiniitty said in the release. “It’s that compliance doesn’t scale the same way the network does. Every new provider means starting the verification process over. Correspondent banking solved this decades ago: originating compliance trusted downstream, no re-execution at every counterparty. Mastercard is applying that model to digital asset payments. Borderless.xyz is the network it runs through.”

The project brings together many of Borderless.xyz’s network participant companies, many of which graduated from Mastercard Start Path, the company’s startup engagement program, according to the release.

“These partners will leverage Mastercard Crypto Credential as some of the first stablecoin payment operators to run on the single-audit compliance model at network scale,” the release said.

Meanwhile, the PYMNTS Intelligence report “From Asset to Everyday Money: Making Digital Currencies Spendable” found that stablecoins’ role in transforming both how payments move and how liquidity is managed is allowing companies to optimize deployable cash.

“As digital currencies become easier to move through wallets, cards and established payment networks, they are also becoming easier for businesses to hold, allocate and redeploy,” PYMNTS reported Monday (Aug. 3). “The deeper opportunity is therefore not simply faster settlement. It is the conversion of corporate liquidity from a static balance sheet asset into programmable working capital. This does not mean companies will hand control of their balance sheets to software. It means more treasury policies could become executable rules rather than periodic instructions.”

MasterCard (MA - Free Report) came out with quarterly earnings of $5.04 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $4.77 per share. This compares to earnings of $4.15 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +5.66%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this processor of debit and credit card payments would post earnings of $4.4 per share when it actually produced earnings of $4.6, delivering a surprise of +4.55%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates four times.

MasterCard, which belongs to the Zacks Financial Transaction Services industry, posted revenues of $9.28 billion for the quarter ended June 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.44%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $8.13 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates four times over the last four quarters.

The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call.

MasterCard shares have lost about 1.3% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 6.9%.

What's Next for MasterCard?While MasterCard has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock?

There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately.

Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions.

Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for MasterCard was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and the current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $5.10 on $9.61 billion in revenues for the coming quarter and $19.61 on $37 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year.

Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Financial Transaction Services is currently in the bottom 40% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.

One other stock from the same industry, Shift4 Payments (FOUR - Free Report) , is yet to report results for the quarter ended June 2026. The results are expected to be released on August 6.

This company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $1.19 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +8.2%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days.

Shift4 Payments' revenues are expected to be $614.9 million, up 48.7% from the year-ago quarter.

Atreides Management LP grew its stake in Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA – Free Report) by 7.9% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 49,604 shares of the credit services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,646 shares during the quarter. Atreides Management LP’s holdings in Mastercard were worth $24,785,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Brighton Jones LLC grew its position in shares of Mastercard by 42.3% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 6,824 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $3,594,000 after purchasing an additional 2,028 shares during the period. Schnieders Capital Management LLC. boosted its stake in Mastercard by 8.5% in the 2nd quarter. Schnieders Capital Management LLC. now owns 2,548 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $1,432,000 after buying an additional 200 shares during the last quarter. Betterment LLC grew its holdings in Mastercard by 6.5% in the 2nd quarter. Betterment LLC now owns 947 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $532,000 after buying an additional 58 shares during the period. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Mastercard by 35.8% during the 2nd quarter. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC now owns 677,204 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $380,548,000 after acquiring an additional 178,387 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Darwin Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Mastercard during the 2nd quarter worth about $431,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 97.28% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of research firms have weighed in on MA. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Mastercard from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, May 2nd. BMO Capital Markets initiated coverage on Mastercard in a report on Tuesday, April 21st. They set an “outperform” rating and a $605.00 price objective for the company. UBS Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Mastercard in a research report on Thursday, June 25th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Mastercard in a report on Tuesday, July 21st. Finally, Barclays assumed coverage on Mastercard in a research report on Wednesday, July 8th. They set an “overweight” rating and a $640.00 price target for the company. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $653.65.

Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on MA

Key Stories Impacting Mastercard Here are the key news stories impacting Mastercard this week:

Positive Sentiment: Mastercard enters its second-quarter report with favorable earnings momentum. Zacks’ Earnings ESP points to potential for an earnings beat, following the prior quarter’s $4.60 adjusted EPS, which exceeded consensus, and 15.8% year-over-year revenue growth. Mastercard Nears Q2 Earnings With Beat Potential Positive Sentiment: Wall Street’s focus is on payment volume, cross-border activity, consumer spending and operating trends in the quarter ended June 2026. Strong results or upbeat guidance could reinforce the stock’s recent strength and premium valuation. Visa and Mastercard Earnings: How Quarterly Estimates Have Evolved Positive Sentiment: Mastercard and the National Bank of Egypt launched a U.S.-dollar corporate debit card for large businesses and small and midsize companies. The product expands Mastercard’s cross-border payments reach, though its near-term financial effect is likely modest. Mastercard and NBE Introduce USD Corporate Debit Card in Egypt Neutral Sentiment: Reports highlight Mastercard’s efforts to strengthen scam defenses and the possibility of selling Vocalink. Better fraud protection could support trust and payments volume, while a Vocalink transaction could unlock value but may also change the company’s strategic profile. Mastercard Bolsters Scam Defense Negative Sentiment: Investors are weighing regulatory risks and increasing competition in digital payments, including stablecoin-based payment services and card issuance. These trends could pressure pricing or reduce Mastercard’s role in some transactions if adoption accelerates. Stablecoin Banking Competition Expands Beyond Settlement Mastercard Trading Up 2.0% MA opened at $562.96 on Wednesday. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $510.49 and its 200-day moving average is $514.32. Mastercard Incorporated has a 52-week low of $464.52 and a 52-week high of $601.77. The company has a quick ratio of 0.98, a current ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.56. The firm has a market capitalization of $497.42 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.58, a P/E/G ratio of 1.73 and a beta of 0.73.

Mastercard (NYSE:MA – Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The credit services provider reported $4.60 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.41 by $0.19. Mastercard had a net margin of 45.88% and a return on equity of 212.96%. The business had revenue of $8.40 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.26 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.73 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 15.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Mastercard Incorporated will post 19.61 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Mastercard Dividend Announcement The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 7th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 9th will be paid a dividend of $0.87 per share. This represents a $3.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.6%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 9th. Mastercard’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 20.14%.

Insider Buying and Selling In other news, insider Sandra A. Arkell sold 200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $540.00, for a total transaction of $108,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 3,322 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,793,880. This trade represents a 5.68% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Raj Seshadri sold 1,977 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $529.73, for a total transaction of $1,047,276.21. Following the transaction, the insider owned 16,429 shares in the company, valued at $8,702,934.17. This trade represents a 10.74% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 7,005 shares of company stock valued at $3,689,976. 0.09% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Mastercard Company Profile (Free Report)

Mastercard Incorporated is a global payments technology company that operates a network connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 200 countries and territories. The company facilitates electronic payments and transaction processing for credit, debit and prepaid card products carrying the Mastercard brand, while also providing a range of payment-related services to issuers, acquirers and merchants. Its technology and network enable authorization, clearing and settlement of payments and support a broad set of use cases including point-of-sale, e-commerce and mobile payments.

Beyond core transaction processing, Mastercard offers a suite of value-added services such as fraud and risk management, identity and authentication tools, tokenization and digital wallet support, cross-border and commercial payment solutions, and data analytics and consulting services for merchants and financial partners.

Featured Stories Five stocks we like better than Mastercard These 3 Stocks Have Soared in 2026—Can They Keep Climbing? Hasbro’s Earnings Beat Shows Why This Is No Longer Just a Toy Story Rambus: Another AI Phoenix Ready to Rise From the Ashes of Correction Chips & Clips: Memory Tariffs Rewire Tech Supply Chains Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MA? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA – Free Report).

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By PYMNTS  |  July 23, 2026

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Mastercard has added new security controls, single application programming interface (API) access, and expanded embedded payments capabilities to its virtual card number platform, Mastercard In Control.

Together, these new features help enterprises and financial institutions manage virtual card programs with greater security, visibility and scale, the company said in a Thursday (July 23) press release emailed to PYMNTS.

The security controls include new Issuer Enforced Controls that allow issuers to set spend limits and other baseline guardrails when creating the virtual card number, and enhanced Clearing Controls that enable corporates and platforms to block invalid transactions, apply more precise controls and better manage payment timing, according to the release.

The new enhancements to the single-API front door, Commercial Connect API, include expanded card controls, simplified integration and accelerated access to end-to-end payment capabilities, the release said.

The expanded embedded payments capabilities provide a simpler, more unified corporate payment experience; reduce onboarding complexity for issuers, platforms and corporates; and features and expanded ecosystem gained through strategic partnerships and innovative use cases, per the release.

“As payments become more digitized and embedded into business workflows, expectations for performance, security and control are higher than ever,” Marc Pettican, global head of corporate solutions at Mastercard, said of the latest enhancements to Mastercard In Control. “We’re expanding our virtual card capabilities to deliver more unified and scalable experiences — helping partners simplify how they implement and scale virtual card programs with greater security, control and consistency.”

Card-based B2B payments scale most effectively when they align with existing workflows rather than asking supplier to change how they operate, Pettican told PYMNTS in an interview posted in January.

Pettican described Mastercard’s Commercial Connect API as “the one front door to Mastercard,” designed to link payment initiation, remittance data, reconciliation, consent and controls across platforms and acquirers. Virtual card rails were embedded from the outset, and support for additional B2B payment capabilities was set to be added over time.

When Mastercard and J.P. Morgan Payments announced in March that they launched a new virtual card in Europe that is designed to support traditional accounts payable needs in industries such as insurance, healthcare, travel and commercial real estate, Karen Ions, head of commercial card client management and delivery at J.P. Morgan Payments, said “virtual cards bring clarity, security and agility to the process.”

By PYMNTS  |  July 15, 2026

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Mastercard has introduced a set of software tools and services designed to make it easier for companies to create digital wallet capabilities on both iOS and Android and add contactless payments to their apps.

The new Mastercard Wallet Services is designed for banks, FinTechs, merchants and digital platforms. It is already being used by several Mastercard partner banks to develop new digital wallet features that could reach consumers by the end of the year, the company said in a Wednesday (July 15) blog post.

“New digital wallets could provide more choice for consumers, as companies all over the world will be able to offer new benefits, rewards, discounts, points or features to encourage users to start using their wallets,” Mastercard Chief Digital Officer Pablo Fourez said in the post. “Those players could also benefit by building stronger connections and engagement with their user bases.”

Apple’s decision in 2024 to begin opening access to the near-field communication (NFC) capabilities that power its mobile payments has created new possibilities for banks to add digital wallet features to their mobile banking apps across iOS and Android, according to the post.

Those possibilities led Mastercard to develop Mastercard Wallet Services, per the post.

“While consumer adoption of alternative wallets will take time, expanded platform access gives banks and FinTechs new opportunities to innovate,” Fourez said. “Ultimately, consumers could be the biggest winners of these changes, gaining access to a broader range of digital wallet experiences, rewards, value-added services and payment options offered through the apps they already use every day.”

PYMNTS reported in August 2024 that in the wake of an agreement between Apple and the European Commission to allow access to NFC technology on iPhones, Apple announced that it was giving developers access to the technology and that starting with iOS 18.1, they would be able to offer NFC contactless transactions using the Secure Element from within their own apps on iPhone.

PYMNTS reported at the time that this move could turbocharge the momentum of digital wallets and allow the in-app contactless features to be deployed across a variety of uses cases, from transit to merchant loyalty and rewards programs.

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Digital Wallets Beyond Transactions: Global In-Depth Report“ found that digital wallets are used for payments, identification and other purposes.

Key Takeaways Mastercard launched Click to Pay with stc pay Bahrain on eligible cards to simplify online purchases.MA uses tokenization and payment passkeys to strengthen security with biometric authentication.Mastercard is expanding its presence in Middle East digital payments through the Bahrain rollout. Mastercard Incorporated (MA - Free Report) is expanding its Click to Pay footprint through a partnership with stc pay Bahrain, making stc pay among the first in the country to offer the feature as a core capability on eligible cards. The move simplifies online shopping by allowing users to complete purchases with a single click using biometric authentication and passkeys instead of manually entering card details.

The rollout supports MA's broader effort to make digital payments faster, safer and more convenient. Click to Pay uses tokenization to replace sensitive card information with secure digital tokens, reducing fraud risks during online transactions. Combined with Mastercard Payment Passkeys, the solution enables password-free authentication through fingerprints or facial recognition, helping deliver a smoother checkout experience while strengthening payment security.

The partnership also advances MA's long-term strategy of expanding value-added payment services beyond its traditional card network. Mastercard aims to enable fully tokenized e-commerce transactions, and wider adoption of Click to Pay could support higher digital transaction volumes while strengthening relationships with fintech partners and merchants.

The Bahrain launch further reinforces MA's presence in fast-growing digital payments markets across the Middle East. As governments and financial institutions continue promoting cashless transactions, partnerships with innovative fintech companies like stc pay can accelerate the adoption of secure digital payment solutions. Expanding Click to Pay across more issuers and merchants should help MA deepen engagement in digital commerce and create additional long-term payment opportunities.

How Are Competitors Faring?Some of MA’s competitors in the payments space include Visa Inc. (V - Free Report) and American Express Company (AXP - Free Report) .

Visa is expanding frictionless online payments through Click to Pay while advancing tokenization and passkey-based authentication across its network. V is also investing in digital identity and AI-powered fraud prevention, helping merchants deliver faster, more secure checkouts and strengthening its position in the growing e-commerce payments market.

American Express is enhancing its digital payments capabilities by integrating tokenization, biometric authentication and digital wallet support across its network. AXP continues to improve online checkout experiences while expanding partnerships with merchants and fintechs, helping deliver secure, seamless transactions and encouraging greater customer engagement in digital commerce.

Mastercard’s Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesOver the past year, MA’s shares have dropped 6% compared with the industry’s fall of 19.1%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

From a valuation standpoint, MA trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 25.07, above the industry average of 18.17. MA carries a Value Score of D.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Mastercard’s 2026 earnings implies 15.3% growth from the year-ago period.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Mastercard currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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European FinTech ZEN.COM has expanded its financial platform to include Mastercard Click to Pay.

This feature joins a platform that already includes multicurrency accounts, foreign exchange, instant cashback, purchase protection and everyday payments, ZEN.COM said in a Friday (July 3) press release.

The integration of Mastercard Click to Pay is available to the 1.5 million consumers ZEN.COM serves across the 33 markets in which it operates, including the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Singapore, according to the release.

Mastercard Click to Pay enables tokenized one-click checkout for online purchases. To use it, users enroll a payment card and get a device recognized as trusted, and then they can complete future purchases at participating merchants with a single click and without having to re-enter their card details, per the release.

“People are searching for simpler experiences,” ZEN.COM Chief Growth Officer Lukasz Neska said in the release. “The future of finance is about removing friction from everyday life, not about adding more financial products for consumers to manage.”

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The Next-Gen Commerce Playbook: Turning Checkout Into a Compounding Customer Loop” found that 84% of global shoppers say one-click checkout is an important factor when choosing where to shop.

The feature eliminates the friction that appears when repeat shoppers are required to re-enter payment details or repeat authentication steps, according to the report.

“One click checkout capabilities address this friction by enabling fast repeat purchases,” the report said. “Stored credentials and streamlined flows align with customer expectations shaped by leading digital platforms.”

PYMNTS reported in February 2024, about five years after Click to Pay was introduced, that removing the manual data entry with Click to Pay reduces checkout times by 50%.

In another Friday press release about ZEN.COM’s integration of Mastercard Click to Pay, Daria Auguscik, vice president, business development director, Mastercard Europe in Poland, said that consumers expect payments to be as simple, fast and secure as other digital services.

“Click to Pay meets these expectations by combining the convenience of card payments with the security of tokenization,” Auguscik said. “We are pleased that ZEN.COM users can now benefit from this global standard and enjoy an even smoother and more intuitive online checkout experience.”