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Mastercard's Global Transactions Roaring: Can It Sustain the Growth?
Mastercard Incorporated MA is surfing a wave of strong global momentum, driven by accelerating transaction volumes and robust consumer spending. The rise in cross-border transaction volumes is proving to be a significant growth driver for the company. In the first quarter of 2025, it reported a 15% year-over-year increase in its cross-border volumes on a local currency basis, reflecting robust growth in international activity.
MA's total international transactions rose 9% year over year in the first quarter of 2025, followed by 15% year-over-year growth in 2023 and 12.2% year-over-year increase in 2024. The company's payment network's net revenues increased 14% year over year in first-quarter 2025, which includes 12% growth in payment network rebates and incentives. Growth in Payment network rebates and incentives was primarily driven by an increase in key drivers and new and renewed deals. We expect the trend to continue and payment network net revenues to witness a nearly 13% year-over-year jump in 2025.
One of the primary drivers of growth is Mastercard's strategic emphasis on digital payments and fintech collaborations. Its collaboration with Corpay will provide an enhanced suite of corporate cross-border payment solutions.
MA is working on acquiring FinTech Newway to enable the option to settle payments in stablecoins for their merchants. The company's consumer payment technologies allow it to capture the significant secular opportunity and expand into new markets. However, keeping up this momentum is going to be a challenge due to rising operating costs.
How Are Competitors Faring?
Some of MA's competitors in the payments solutions space are Visa Inc. V and American Express Company AXP.
Visa reported a 13% year-over-year increase in cross-border volumes in the first quarter of 2025. Over the first half of fiscal 2025, Visa witnessed 14.2% growth in payment volumes. The company estimates net revenues to witness high single-digit to low double-digit growth on an adjusted nominal-dollar basis in fiscal 2025.
American Express reported 13% year-over-year growth in international card services billed business, though its premium customer base shows strong spending resilience in first-quarter 2025. The Global Merchant and Network Services segment's pre-tax net income fell 3% year over year in the quarter. American Express anticipates revenues to increase between 8% and 10% in 2025.
Mastercard's Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates
Year to date, MA's shares have gained 11.2% compared with the industry 's rise of 8.2%.
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From a valuation standpoint, MA trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 34.41, above the industry average of 23.67. MA carries a Value Score of D.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Mastercard's 2025 earnings implies 9.5% growth from the year-ago period. It witnessed one upward estimate revision in the past month against no movement in the opposite direction.
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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Mastercard Incorporated (MA): Free Stock Analysis Report
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