Inside Visa's quest to go beyond card swipes

• Key insights: Andrew Torre, Visa's president of Value-Added Services, says the card network is focusing on areas such as AI and digital assets. 
• What's at stake: Visa is competing with Mastercard. Both firms are under pressure to find revenue beyond card fees.
• Expert quote: "We're at a rare moment where there's an intersection of agentic AI and stablecoins, there's a lot of new technology that's colliding," Torre said. 

A particularly nasty form of payment fraud has provided the latest chance for Visa to showcase services that aren't directly related to card payments.  
The card network said it recently spotted a "romance scam" that uses fraudulent dating sites to mimic affection through bots with automated personalities that trick victims into sending money to thieves. 

"It's a horrible thing to see, but there is definitely a way to embed AI in a case like this," Andrew Torre, Visa's president of Value-Added Services, told American Banker. Visa offers scam prevention tools that use AI and deep web monitoring via technology acquired from FeatureSpace to map the crime's infrastructure — and partners with merchant acquirers to dismantle it. It has nothing to do with card swipes at the point of sale, and it's a message that's primarily aimed at consumers. But it's also a way for Visa to pitch its ability to sell value-added services to merchants. 

Value-added services are what Visa, Mastercard and other incumbent payment firms call a strategy that uses the companies' vast cross-border networks as a marketplace for ancillary services. 

As the card network faces pressure from regulatory scrutiny, legal battles with merchants over fees and the growth  of card alternatives, value-added services have become an increasingly important source of revenue for Visa and Mastercard. 

On the spot

At Visa, much of the responsibility for expanding value-added services falls on Torre. A 24-year Visa veteran, Torre became president of Value-Added Services in 2025, replacing Antony Cahill, who was named regional president and CEO of Visa's European business.

Torre was previously Visa's regional president for Central Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa between 2018 and 2025, helping to lead the card network's aggressive expansion in the region. He joined Visa in 2002 and has held roles in product, strategy and pricing, including stints as Group Country Manager in Russia in 2013 and Sub-Saharan Africa in 2015.

"These roles have given me a view of the complexity that's out there, the problems that need to be solved," Torre said, noting that clients are looking to streamline international payments with blockchain and real-time processing technology.

Visa's value-added services totaled $17.5 billion in revenue during fiscal 2025, up 9% from the prior year (out of $40 billion in total revenue). The card brand has more than 650 partners in its services unit, according to Visa. In a research note, analysts at Jefferies said more than half of Visa's net revenue growth comes from value-added services, with the strength attributed to advisory and marketing services. 

How Visa tries to 'add value'

A lot of Visa's current work focuses on selling services that help its clients embrace digital assets such as stablecoins and new forms of artificial intelligence."A lot of what we do rides on cards and consumer payments, but that is changing over time," Torre said, noting moves in digital assets and AI-supported merchant services.

"We're looking to play a bigger role than just around consumer payments."Visa has an internal group of experts in stablecoins who have developed services that support stablecoins and tokenized deposits. The primary benefit is to improve processing, with more direct payments evolving in the future, according to Torre. Visa recently introduced a Stablecoin Advisory Practice to help deploy stablecoins and related technology, with Navy Federal Credit Union and Vystar Credit Union among the first users.

"It's a small market but it's growing fast," Torre said.  The card network's agentic commerce technology uses digital credentials to vet AI agents and supports controls such as spending limits and where, when and how agents can spend. "We're at a rare moment where there's an intersection of agentic AI and stablecoins, there's a lot of new technology that's colliding," Torre said.

In other moves to bolster its value-added business, Visa recently upgraded Authorize.net, a service that helps businesses analyze data to more quickly respond to consumer trends. The card brand also added more AI models and support for in-person card readers and Tap to Phone, or technology that enables smartphones to accept payments with minimal hardware upgrades. These upgrades are live in the U.S. and are slated for international release this year.

Other recent moves include a "unified checkout service, which combines payment acceptance with other functions such as fraud management, authentication and token management (token in this case refers to substitute values for card numbers as a security measure, and is not related to cryptocurrency).

Visa has used an acquisition of AI firm Featurespace to build a risk hub, a security tool that uses Featurespace's technology to identify risky transactions and build profiles around valid customer activity to reduce the time required to vet transactions. In another move, a December partnership with MassPay will integrate Visa Direct to support faster payouts to cards, bank accounts and digital wallets through MassPay's payment orchestration platform, which routes transactions to the best possible option based on speed and expense.

Visa's value-added services is part of how it competes with Mastercard and other large payment companies such as Stripe, PayPal and Block. For Mastercard, value-added services include technology, data and consulting covering fraud prevention, cybersecurity, credit management, marketing, open banking, real-time payments and data management.

Mastercard's network includes more than 220 countries, 150 million merchant locations and 3.5 billion cards. In the most recent quarter, Mastercard's value-added net revenue was $3.9 billion, up 26% from the prior year and about 45% of the card brand's total revenue.

In a research note, William Blair analysis said that while "we consider Mastercard's VAS offerings qualitatively superior, focused on security, cyber, authentication, etc., Visa is playing effective catch-up. We believe Visa can maintain a revenue growth advantage."