The Public Ledger: Another Highly Anticipated Earnings Season Kicks Off

Hello, Fintech Friends!

After following payments and fintech for the last two decades, it feels like the past couple earnings seasons have been among the most anticipated, and eventful, in all that time, with seemingly the entire group a battleground for the bulls and bears.

Are modern processors accelerating the demise of legacy providers? Payments and software converged, but will AI kill them both? Will this be the quarter where we finally see credit deteriorate for fintech lenders? And what about stablecoins?

In terms of drama, the group has certainly delivered: from Fiserv’s spectacular blowup last October, to the ouster of Alex Chriss as PayPal’s CEO in February, to Jack Dorsey’s stunning decision to slash 40% of Block’s* workforce based on AI advancements. Big stock moves have become the norm, not the exception. So, what can we expect this time around?

Given the events of the past six weeks, the economy is likely to be top of mind for investors. While one may have expected some deterioration in spending as energy prices shot up, data from the big banks suggest the consumer remained solid through March, with a possible assist from larger tax refunds.

Visa* and Mastercard will give us a look at how volume growth trended through April and what, if any, impact the Iranian conflict has had on lucrative cross-border travel. American Express, which reports later this week, will reveal how the well-heeled are faring. I don’t expect any major bumps in the road.

After that, the acquirers and payment service providers will share their results. While the networks give a broad view of the economy, many of the other publicly traded payment names have a narrower focus: smaller and mid-sized businesses; more discretionary spending, like at restaurants, hotels, entertainment venues, and retail; and more e-commerce. While most spending categories move together, there is a possibility of divergence, and for one merchant base to outperform (or lag) another.

After getting hit hard earlier in the year at the height of the Iranian conflict, many of the stocks for fintech lenders have snapped back over the last two weeks as the worst fears failed to materialize.

All eyes will be on delinquency and origination trends across BNPL and other short-term liquidity products, and whether this latest threat to lower- and middle-income consumers—higher energy prices, which make up a large part of their budget—is expected to have an impact over the medium-term, which could be in the form of higher charge-offs or increased demand.

Now, all that’s left to do is sit back and watch the numbers come in, and do your best to sort fact from fiction. Enjoy!

*Disclosure: As of April 22, I have long positions in Visa and Block.

Bob Hammel

p.s. Have feedback? Reach out on X

Last week, American Express announced it was acquiring Hypercard, an agentic expense management company. Historically, expense management has been a highly manual and time-consuming process. While aspects of it have been automated over time, the rise of autonomous AI agents promise to accelerate the time to reimbursement, reduce errors, and eliminate the need for costly human intervention. Given American Express’ significant corporate card portfolio, delivering the most modern spend and expense platform for businesses remains a top priority, and this acquisition furthers that goal.

Read more: American Express to Acquire Hyper, Adding to Its AI Expertise and Expense Management Capabilities

Consistent with other big banks, the biggest big bank—J.P. Morgan—reported combined debit and credit card sales volume of $488 billion during Q1, up 8.7% over the prior year, an acceleration of 140-bps from Q4 2025, and the highest growth rate since at least the beginning of 2023. Despite increased energy prices, J.P. Morgan pointed to a stable and solid labor market as an important underlying driver of consumer health. The bank also noted an uptick in consumer deposits, which may be due in part to higher refunds this tax season.

Read more: JPMorganChase Q1 2026 Earnings Supplement

On April 16, WEX—a provider of fleet cards, benefits administration, and corporate payment solutions—published a 164-page slide deck, attempting to rebut many of the claims made by Impactive Capital in their own voluminous presentation (99 pages) made just days earlier. Impactive, which owns about 5% of WEX, is pushing for board changes at the company, including stripping the CEO of her Chair title, a spin-off of WEX’s benefits segment, and other strategic and operational changes to reinvigorate the company’s financial performance, especially in relation to Corpay and HealthEquity, WEX’s two closest publicly-traded peers. WEX’s annual meeting is set for May 5. While not taking a position on this particular dispute, I believe it’s an interesting test case, and if successful, could lead to other activist campaigns across payments and fintech, where I believe there’s a perception of poor capital allocation and strategic decision-making by management teams and boards.         

Read more: WEX Investor Presentation