Mastercard: Capital One Renewal, Cross-Border Strength, and Value-Added Services Drive Reinforced Overweight Rating and Higher Target

Analyst James Faucette from Morgan Stanley maintained a Buy rating on Mastercard and increased the price target to $678.00 from $665.00.

James Faucette has given his Buy rating due to a combination of factors tied to Mastercard’s competitive positioning and growth outlook. He highlights the renewed credit partnership with Capital One, including Mastercard’s role as the network for a significant share of newly acquired credit accounts, as a key validation of the company’s scale-driven value proposition and competitive edge versus other networks. In his view, the ongoing shift in Capital One’s debit volumes away from Mastercard should largely conclude by the first half of 2026, with only a very limited overall revenue effect that is expected to be substantially offset by then. He also notes that underlying U.S. spending trends remain solid, supporting a reacceleration of domestic volume growth after a modest near-term impact from debit runoff.

Faucette further points to robust cross-border activity, with double-digit growth in international volumes, as a sign of healthy fundamentals despite temporary headwinds such as adverse weather in Europe and tougher comparisons from prior share gains. The company’s outlook for 2026, calling for roughly low-teens revenue growth with disciplined expense growth, underpins his confidence in sustained earnings expansion. In addition, he emphasizes the strong momentum in value-added services, which are growing faster than the core business and are being enhanced by new opportunities in emerging areas such as agentic technologies. Taken together, these factors lead him to reiterate an Overweight (Buy) stance and raise his price target, reflecting continued conviction in Mastercard’s long-term growth and profitability profile.

According to TipRanks, Faucette is a 4-star analyst with an average return of 4.3% and a 62.83% success rate. Faucette covers the Technology sector, focusing on stocks such as Block, Endava, and Accenture.

In another report released today, Goldman Sachs also reiterated a Buy rating on the stock with a $739.00 price target.