Visa's finance chief Vasant Prabhu to leave payments giant

BENGALURU – Visa said on Thursday that its chief financial officer, Mr Vasant Prabhu, will leave the company on Sept 30, after eight years as one of the top executives at the payment giant.

Shares in Visa, which have gained about 9 per cent so far this year, were down marginally in extended trading after the announcement.

The leadership change comes at a time when Visa is grappling with revenue growth winding back to pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter as the post-lockdown travel craze ebbed and consumer spending slowed.

In November 2022, the world’s largest payment processor named its president, Mr Ryan McInerney, as its new chief executive officer to steer the company through a challenging period for the payment industry as consumers tighten their spending.

“The transition is very smooth and it is normal that a chief finance officer that worked with a CEO for many years is not staying for the new leadership,” Mr Dan Dolev, managing director of Mizuho Securities in the United States, told Reuters.

“Either way, the fundamentals are a much more important driver of the stock in this case, and management changes are unlikely to affect them,” said Mr Dolev.

Wedbush Securities analyst Moshe Katri told Reuters that under Mr Prabhu, the company built a large value-added service segment, expanded into new payment flows and successfully navigated an evolving regulatory environment.

Mr Prabhu, who joined the company in 2015, will assist the company with the search for his replacement. He will also be stepping down from his role as the vice-chair of Visa.

“Prabhu has been a vital element of Visa’s success story over the past eight years and his departure will be a loss for the company,” KBW analysts wrote in a note, adding that the payment processor should have no dearth of candidates to succeed him. REUTERS