Visa Cuts 2,600 Jobs, Sends Savings to Stablecoins

Visa is cutting roughly 2,600 jobs, seven percent of its total headcount. The card network employed about 34,100 people at the end of its last fiscal year, which leaves it just under 31,500 once this round is done.

The decision was announced on July 28, the same day as the company’s quarterly results. The cuts fall mainly on technology and product teams, the part of the company that has grown fastest in recent years and that costs the most per head.

What the chief executive told staff

Ryan McInerney, chief executive of Visa, explained the decision to employees in an internal memo. The explanation is short and turns on a single word: transformation.

How we work needs to evolve to capitalize on the opportunities ahead and best position Visa to lead this transformation. AI is also helping to accelerate this evolution and shape how work gets done at Visa.

In the same memo, McInerney tied the layoffs to moving money around inside the company rather than to weaker business:

I have deep conviction that we are doing what is right for Visa, our clients and our partners as we continue to focus on driving efficiency across the company in order to reinvest in our highest potential opportunities.

The wording matters because of what follows it. The cost cut is not framed as a defence of margin, but as a source of capital for new revenue lines.

Where the money goes

The company names four destinations for the money freed up by the layoffs:

• consumer payments, the classic card business
• cross-border services, where the margin per transaction is highest
• business payments, a segment where Visa has spent years trying to take ground from banks
• stablecoins, which sat on the edge of the payments conversation until two years ago

The order on that list says more than the headcount number does. Stablecoins and cross-border payments are areas where the card network faces real competition, from bank consortia and from infrastructure that clears a transaction at a far lower price.

The second round in under two years

This is not the first reduction. In October 2024, Visa cut 1,400 employees and contractors, about 1,000 of them in technology roles. At the time the company had more than 30,000 staff worldwide.

Comparing those two numbers is more revealing than either one on its own. Between the two rounds the headcount did not fall, it rose, from more than 30,000 to around 34,100. Visa was hiring and firing over the same period, and hiring faster. This cut brings the company back to roughly the size it was before that growth.

The two rounds share a target as well: technology. In October 2024, technology roles accounted for close to three quarters of the cuts, and they lead the list again now.

How much of this is really AI

The company says artificial intelligence has reduced the volume of repetitive work and sped up product development. That explanation has been repeated across statements from large technology and financial firms over the past year, and it sounds better to investors than admitting that hiring ran too fast.

According to people close to the company, automation was neither the only nor the main reason. Cost control after years of rapid hiring sits behind the decision, which makes this a correction to the cost base rather than a technological leap.

The next checkable point is the annual report. If headcount at the end of the fiscal year lands near 31,500, the cut was carried out as announced. If it comes in noticeably higher, Visa has again been hiring alongside the layoffs, exactly as it did between 2024 and now.