Global Payments NYSE: GPN reported first-quarter 2026 results that exceeded management’s expectations, with executives pointing to resilient consumer spending, early benefits from the Worldpay acquisition and continued momentum for its Genius commerce platform.
Chief Executive Officer Cameron Bready said the company delivered “very pleased” financial and operating performance in the quarter and said the results reinforced management’s confidence in the trajectory of the business following the January closing of the Worldpay acquisition and Issuer Solutions transaction.
On a normalized basis, Global Payments said adjusted net revenue grew approximately 5.5%, or about 4.5% on a constant currency basis. Bready said the performance reflected healthy underlying consumer spending trends, partially offset by lower Middle East airline volumes and slightly lower IRS payment volumes tied to tax reforms under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Revenue, Margins and Cash Flow
Chief Financial Officer Josh Whipple said Global Payments generated adjusted net revenue of $2.86 billion in the first quarter. Currency exchange rates provided a roughly 100-basis-point tailwind, which he said was about 50 basis points below the outlook shared in February.
The company posted adjusted operating margin of 39.9%, reflecting approximately 110 basis points of normalized year-over-year margin expansion, excluding dispositions. Adjusted earnings per share were $2.96, up 10% on both a reported and constant currency basis. On a normalized basis, adjusted EPS was $2.99, up 11%.
Global Payments generated adjusted free cash flow of $544 million, representing nearly 70% conversion of adjusted net income to adjusted free cash flow. Whipple said that level was consistent with the company’s typical first-quarter pattern, as cash conversion is generally lowest early in the year and improves seasonally.
The company invested $261 million in capital expenditures during the quarter. Net leverage stood at 3.5 times at quarter-end, in line with expectations. Whipple said Global Payments issued $1 billion of senior notes during the quarter to refinance a significant portion of debt maturing in March, leaving approximately 95% of its indebtedness fixed at a weighted average cost of debt of 4%.
Capital Returns Remain a Priority
Management emphasized continued capital returns to shareholders. Bready said Global Payments returned more than $600 million to shareholders during the quarter through dividends and share repurchases. Whipple said the total was nearly $620 million year to date, including a $550 million accelerated share repurchase program that retired approximately 7.3 million shares.
Bready also announced another accelerated share repurchase program to immediately repurchase $500 million of stock. Following that program, the company expects to resume open-market repurchases during the second quarter.
Whipple said Global Payments remains committed to returning more than $2 billion to shareholders in 2026 and approximately $7.5 billion over the 2025 through 2027 period, while preserving investment-grade credit ratings and reaching a 3.0-times net leverage target by the end of 2027.
Worldpay Integration Shows Early Progress
Bready said integration work following the Worldpay acquisition is off to a strong start, with Global Payments taking a “best of both” approach across talent, products and technology. He said the combined scale of Global Payments and Worldpay is already producing commercial opportunities that neither company could have achieved independently.
Worldpay’s U.S. direct sales force began selling Genius shortly after the close, addressing what Bready called a long-standing product gap. He also cited early interest from Worldpay enterprise restaurant clients, including Subway, which selected Global Payments’ Genius kitchen management software for deployment across approximately 2,500 locations.
Management said Worldpay’s business development team signed two new partners during the quarter that were specifically motivated by access to Genius. In addition, Global Payments moved quickly to integrate Worldpay’s e-commerce solution into its SMB distribution channels. Bready said new sales increased 25% sequentially and more than doubled year over year.
Whipple said the company is laying the groundwork in 2026 for the $200 million in revenue synergies it has committed to from the transaction. He said larger growth contributions are expected to begin in 2027 and build more meaningfully in 2028, when the company expects to realize approximately $100 million in revenue synergies and exit the year at a $200 million run rate.
Genius Platform Gains Momentum
Global Payments highlighted continued growth for Genius, its commerce platform. Bready said Genius bookings increased more than 25% sequentially and nearly doubled year over year. He also said yields from new clients increased more than 30% year over year, reflecting greater perceived value in the product’s capabilities.
Whipple said new Genius locations were about 25% higher than the prior-year quarter, while the platform’s payment attach rate improved more than 20%. He added that sales force changes and Genius’ ease of implementation reduced time to go live by more than 50% for small-business clients in the quarter.
During the question-and-answer session, Bready attributed higher Genius yields to the platform’s broader functionality, greater cross-selling of value-added services and improved payment attachment through dealer channels. Chief Operating Officer Bob Cortopassi added that the company’s sales transformation, including better talent, training and tools, has helped improve deal values.
Executives also pointed to expanded distribution. Bready said Global Payments launched “Genius Days” to accelerate adoption with financial institution partners through hands-on demonstrations. Extending Genius into Worldpay’s financial institution partner channel remains a priority, with initial contributions expected in 2027.
Global Payments also cited several customer wins across channels and geographies. These included Abercrombie & Fitch in the U.S., ALDI Süd across North America and EMEA, Morrisons in the U.K., CKE Restaurants for Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. in the U.S., and KFC and Pizza Hut in Asia Pacific.
Outlook Reaffirmed Despite Headwinds
Global Payments reaffirmed its full-year 2026 outlook for adjusted net revenue growth, adjusted operating margin expansion and adjusted EPS. Whipple said the company continues to expect normalized constant currency adjusted net revenue growth of approximately 5% and adjusted EPS of $13.80 to $14.00.
For the second quarter, Whipple said the potential impact from the Middle East conflict and softer tax payment volumes could be up to a 100-basis-point headwind to adjusted net revenue growth. Currency is expected to be roughly neutral in the second quarter. For the full year, the company now expects currency exchange rates to be less than a 50-basis-point tailwind to reported net revenue growth, reflecting recent U.S. dollar strength.
Management also reaffirmed expectations for normalized adjusted operating margin expansion of approximately 150 basis points for 2026, driven by operating efficiencies from its transformation program and cost savings from the Worldpay integration, particularly in the second half of the year.
Bready said the company continues to monitor the conflict in the Middle East but expects the impact to be “modest and transitory.” He said Global Payments’ broader geographic, category and merchant-size diversification supports the durability of the business model.
Executives also discussed artificial intelligence as an area of investment across agentic commerce, product capabilities and internal productivity. Bready said Global Payments is working with enterprise merchants on Google’s UCP protocol, has a production-ready payments model context protocol and is using Ravelin, its AI-native fraud prevention platform, to support agentic risk capabilities.
“Our scale doesn’t just make our AI smarter,” Bready said. “It drives better results for our clients and reinforces our position at the center of the future of commerce.”
About Global Payments NYSE: GPN
Global Payments Inc NYSE: GPN is a worldwide provider of payment technology and software solutions that enables commerce for merchants, issuers and enterprises. The company develops and operates payment processing networks, point-of-sale systems and cloud-based software that facilitate electronic transactions across in-store, online and mobile channels. Its services span merchant acquiring, payment gateway services, omnichannel commerce platforms, and solutions for recurring and subscription billing.
Global Payments offers a range of products and services including integrated payment terminals and point-of-sale software, e-commerce and gateway technologies, fraud prevention and tokenization tools, and business analytics and reporting.
This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.
Before you consider Global Payments, you'll want to hear this.
MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Global Payments wasn't on the list.
While Global Payments currently has a Hold rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys.
View The Five Stocks Here
MarketBeat just released its list of the 7 hottest IPOs expected to hit Wall Street in 2026. See which companies are preparing to go public and why investors are watching closely.
Get This Free Report
