Visa Pays $1.5B for Argentina's Prisma, Its Biggest Bet Yet on Issuer Processing

Visa bought 100% of Prisma Medios de Pago and Newpay in Argentina for $1.5 billion cash in February 2026, disclosed in its Q3 FY2026 10-Q. Prisma runs credit, debit and prepaid card issuer processing; Newpay operates real-time payments, the Banelco ATM network and the PagoMisCuentas bill platform. It dwarfs the $929 million Visa paid for Pismo in 2024 and lands the network squarely in the business its own clients' processors are in. Visa's FY2025 10-K already names Issuer Processing and Core Banking as service lines and states plainly that it competes with payment processors.