Mastercard's (MA) renewed credit partnership with Capital One Financial (COF) is encouraging and the deal should ease recent investor concerns that the current debit migration could eventually extend to Capital One's credit portfolio, Morgan Stanley said in a Friday note.
Contractual obligations with Capital One are slated to result in minimal revenue impact in 2026, with a direct revenue impact to begin in 2027, Morgan Stanley said, adding that it estimates that Mastercard will have largely offset the anticipated impact by that time.
Noting the company's Q4 results that came ahead of Wall Street's estimates on Thursday, Morgan Stanley said it was "reassured by resilient consumer spending trends" reported by the company, which saw support from balanced unemployment rates, and wage growth largely continuing to outpace inflation.
Looking ahead, the firm saw potential opportunities for Mastercard coming from agentic commerce, and said that the company was "well positioned" given significant investment and recent innovation, such as Mastercard Agent Pay.
Morgan Stanley raised its price target on Mastercard to $678 from $665 and maintained its overweight rating.
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