By Sabrina Escobar
Credit-card issuers have an uplifting message for investors ahead of retailers' earnings report: Consumer spending held up well in the last quarter of 2025, and continues to grow at a healthy clip.
Both Visa and American Express flagged resilient shopping in their latest quarterly earnings. Visa reported results Thursday afternoon, while Amex's results were released Friday morning.
Visa's U.S. payments volume rose 7% year over year, driven by e-commerce spending, executives said. Christopher Suh, chief financial officer, at Visa, said holiday spending was slightly better than the prior year across the world, and in line with 2024 in the U.S. specifically.
Encouragingly, spending growth was consistent across the income spectrum, although outlays by wealthier shoppers grew at a faster pace, Suh said. Both discretionary and non-discretionary purchases remained strong, he added.
American Express, whose customers skews toward the higher end of the income spectrum, saw similar trends throughout the quarter.
Retail spending continued to show "good momentum," up 10% from a year ago. Spending at luxury retail merchants rose 15%, reflecting the "continued strength" of Amex's wealthier customer base, said Christophe Le Caillec, Amex's chief financial officer, on Friday.
That bodes well for the retailers preparing to release holiday-quarter results in the coming weeks. Ahead of the holiday season, investors and company executives had been anxious about whether Americans would show up for the year's biggest shopping extravaganza, given rising concerns about affordability and a weakening labor market.
Visa and Amex's comments suggest that they did, although it's likely that some retailers nabbed a bigger share of the total spending than others. Just who won the season remains to be seen and will become clearer over the course of earnings season.
Shares of Amex were down 3.5% in midafternoon trading Friday, more so a reflection of the company's slight earnings miss than any concerns about revenue growth. Visa was down 2.2%.
Another positive sign is that Amex said the company continues to see good momentum in spending trends in the new year, driven by higher-income millennials and Gen Z.
Analysts and economists predict that new tax cuts could act as a stimulus that boosts spending in the coming months. BofA Securities projects that refunds alone will increase by about $100 billion this year from a year ago.
Write to Sabrina Escobar at sabrina.escobar@barrons.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 30, 2026 14:52 ET (19:52 GMT)
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