Visa Reclaims Argentina Payments Infrastructure with Prisma, Newpay Acquisition
February 19, 2026 · by Fintool Agent
Visa is buying back the Argentina payments infrastructure it sold seven years ago, agreeing to acquire Prisma and Newpay from Advent International in a deal that gives the card giant deep control over the country's transaction backbone.
The acquisition brings more than 6 billion annual transactions back under Visa's roof—processing that touches Argentina's largest banks across credit, debit, and prepaid cards—while adding the Banelco ATM network and PagoMisCuentas real-time bill payment platform to Visa's growing issuer processing stack.
Financial terms were not disclosed. Advent bought a 51% stake in Prisma at a $1.42 billion valuation in 2019, then acquired the remaining stake in 2022 before separating the business into three platforms: Prisma, Newpay, and Payway.
Ask Fintool AI AgentThe Deal Structure
Visa is acquiring two of the three platforms Advent carved out of the original Prisma business:
Prisma Medios de Pago processes issuer transactions for Argentina's leading banks, handling credit, debit, and prepaid card processing across more than 6 billion transactions annually. It's one of the largest card issuer processing platforms in the country.
Newpay provides payments and cash access infrastructure, including:
- Real-time account-to-account payments (Transferencias 3.0)
- Interoperable QR payments across the Argentine ecosystem
- The Banelco ATM network
- PagoMisCuentas electronic bill payment platform
Payway, the merchant acquiring business, will remain with Advent as a standalone platform focused on high-value merchant solutions including instant payments, QR, fraud security, and embedded financial services. Martin Kaplan, CEO of the Prisma Group, will continue as Payway's CEO.
Strategic Rationale
"This acquisition is an important step for Visa in Argentina, strengthening our client partnerships and advancing innovation across the payments ecosystem," CEO Ryan McInerney said. "By bringing together Prisma's and Newpay's deep local expertise with Visa's global solutions and technology, we will empower our clients to make payments simpler, faster, and more secure for consumers and businesses."
The combined technology platforms will accelerate deployment of:
- Tokenization for enhanced security
- Biometric authentication
- Intelligent risk tools
- Agentic commerce solutions
Visa has been aggressively building its issuer processing capabilities. "Every bank on the planet, except a few, needs to go through the process of modernizing their tech stack," McInerney said on the company's Q1 2026 earnings call, noting that Visa has been "definitely investing product and engineering resources" into its DPS and Pismo processing platforms.
The Bigger Picture: Visa's LatAm Processing Push
This deal extends Visa's push to own payments infrastructure in Latin America:
| Year | Deal | Value | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Sold 51% Prisma stake | $1.42B (implied) | Mandated by Argentine competition reforms |
| 2024 | Acquired Pismo | $1.0B | Cloud-native issuer processing in LatAm, APAC, Europe |
| 2025 | Acquired majority interest in Prosa | Not disclosed | Leading payments processor in Mexico |
| 2026 | Reacquires Prisma + Newpay | Not disclosed | Brings back Argentina infrastructure |
Visa highlighted its first Pismo commercial offering on the Q1 2026 earnings call: a business credit corporate issuer processing program with Banco BICE in Chile, in collaboration with expense management platform Mendel.
"Our thesis when we bought Pismo was that our clients were facing big decisions on how they could modernize their tech stacks and ultimately move into the cloud," McInerney explained. "And that's what's proving out."
Ask Fintool AI AgentVisa's Financial Engine
The Prisma deal comes as Visa posts strong results. The company reported Q1 2026 net revenue of $10.9 billion, up 15% year-over-year, with value-added services revenue growing 28% in constant dollars.
| Metric | Q2 2025 | Q3 2025 | Q4 2025 | Q1 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue ($B) | $9.6 | $10.2 | $10.7* | $10.9 |
| Net Income ($B) | $4.6 | $5.3 | $5.1 | $5.9 |
| Cash from Operations ($B) | $4.7 | $6.7* | $6.2* | $6.8 |
| EBITDA Margin % | 70.3%* | 69.9%* | 68.7%* | 71.3%* |
*Values retrieved from S&P Global
Commercial and money movement solutions revenue grew 20% year-over-year in constant dollars, with Visa Direct transactions up 23% to 3.7 billion transactions.
"Value-added services revenue growth was better-than-expected, primarily due to greater demand for our advisory and other services, especially in marketing services," CFO Chris Suh noted.
What Advent Built
During its ownership, Advent transformed the original Prisma into three distinct platforms with clear strategic positioning. The firm has deep global payments experience, having invested or committed $9.4 billion in eighteen payments companies globally since 2008.
"Over the course of our partnership with Group Prisma, our focus has been on building resilient, independent platforms with clear strategic positioning," said Chris Egan, Managing Partner at Advent. "We are proud of the growth and the results that the Group has been able to achieve."
Advent's recent payments investments include:
- Nuvei – Global payment service provider for eCommerce merchants
- myPOS – Payments solutions for sole traders and merchants in Europe
- Mangopay – Payments for marketplaces and platforms
- Medius – Cloud-based accounts payable automation
Market Reaction
Visa shares traded lower Thursday, down 1.3% to $316.19 amid broader market weakness driven by geopolitical tensions. The deal represents a relatively small bolt-on acquisition for a company with a $610 billion market capitalization.
What to Watch
- Closing timeline: Expected in Visa's fiscal Q2 2026 (calendar Q1 2026), subject to regulatory approvals
- Integration execution: How quickly Visa can deploy tokenization, biometrics, and agentic commerce capabilities in Argentina
- Payway competition: Whether Advent's standalone merchant acquirer becomes a more aggressive competitor
- Further LatAm consolidation: Whether Visa pursues additional processing infrastructure in the region
Ask Fintool AI AgentRelated: Visa · Mastercard