What Marqeta (MQ) Said on Its Q3 Earnings Call

Key Points

• Q3 processing volume rose 29% to $126 billion, while net revenue increased 8% to $176 million and gross profit rose 7% to $122 million. Adjusted EBITDA climbed 28% to $39 million, setting company-high margins; GAAP net income included a $107 million non-cash tax benefit.
• Marqeta expanded its Block relationship by migrating the Square Credit Card program to its platform, while launching products with Google Wallet for Kids and Satispay. Block represented 41% of net revenue, but non-Block TPV grew more than twice as fast as Block TPV.
• Marqeta lowered its full-year net-revenue growth outlook to 11%–12% but maintained gross-profit growth guidance of 11%–12% and raised its adjusted EBITDA growth outlook to the low-to-mid-30% range. The revenue reduction reflects a customer contracting directly with an issuing bank, which management said does not affect gross profit.

Marqeta NASDAQ: MQ reported third-quarter 2026 total processing volume of $126 billion, up 29% from a year earlier, marking the company’s first quarter with annualized TPV above $500 billion. Net revenue increased 8% to $176 million, while gross profit rose 7% to $122 million, both at the high end of management’s expectations.

Adjusted EBITDA increased 28% year over year to $39 million, producing a 22% margin on net revenue and a 32% margin on gross profit. Chief Financial Officer Patti Kangwankij said both margin measures represented new company highs. GAAP net income was $115 million, including a $107 million non-cash tax benefit tied to the release of a significant portion of the valuation allowance on deferred tax assets.

Block relationship expands with Square credit card migration

Chief Executive Officer Mike Milotich highlighted an expansion of Marqeta’s relationship with Block, including the migration of the Square Credit Card program to Marqeta’s platform on the American Express network. Marqeta already supports Square’s debit program.

The Square Credit Card, launched in 2023, provides sellers with a credit line that grows alongside business volume. Milotich said consolidating Square’s debit and credit offerings on Marqeta gives the customer a single platform for card-product development while allowing Square to use different bank and network partners.

The migration also marked Marqeta’s first live program on the American Express network. Milotich said the company has now completed four portfolio migrations in the past 24 months, including two credit and two debit programs, with additional signed migrations underway.

“Programs are looking to come off the older platforms, and they see the benefit of what we can provide,” Milotich said during the question-and-answer session. He said Marqeta’s migration process focuses on data mapping and cryptography transitions while avoiding disruption to cardholders.

Block accounted for 41% of Marqeta’s net revenue during the quarter, compared with 44% a year earlier and unchanged from the second quarter. Kangwankij said non-Block TPV continued to grow more than twice as fast as Block TPV.

Management said Cash App new issuance continued to slow as expected, with little to no new issuance expected by the end of December. Milotich said the change applies to new issuance rather than the existing Cash App card base, which includes millions of users remaining on Marqeta’s platform. Marqeta also continues to support Cash App’s flexible credential product that incorporates Afterpay capabilities.

Customer launches and product investments

Marqeta said it expanded its relationship with Google by supporting a new Google Wallet for Kids offering. The company’s tokenization and spending-control capabilities allow parents to set daily spending limits, monitor activity, and lock or unlock funds for children and teens.

In Europe, Marqeta enabled Italian fintech Satispay to launch a consumer debit-card program. Satispay has more than 6.5 million users and 450,000 affiliated stores across Italy, according to Marqeta.

The company also described continued investments in stablecoin-backed card programs, commercial payments and onboarding capabilities. Marqeta announced collaborations with BVNK, zerohash and Coinbase intended to connect stablecoin funding sources to existing card rails. It already issues crypto-backed cards through its relationship with Coinbase.

For commercial payments, Marqeta is integrating network-level straight-through processing intended to automate supplier virtual-card payments without manual entry or intervention. The company is also adding account-linking, balance-checking and identity-verification capabilities through Mastercard Open Finance and Plaid.

• Lending, including buy now, pay later, grew nearly 40% year over year.
• Expense-management volume growth accelerated for a fifth consecutive quarter, reaching the high 50% range.
• On-demand delivery grew at a high-single-digit rate, reflecting the maturity of that use case.

Revenue outlook reduced, while gross-profit expectations remain intact

For the fourth quarter, Marqeta forecast gross-profit growth of 5% to 7% and net-revenue growth of 3% to 5%. The net-revenue outlook was lower than the company’s prior expectation, but management said the change does not affect gross profit.

Kangwankij attributed the difference to one customer choosing to contract directly with an issuing bank that Marqeta already supports. Marqeta will continue to process the customer’s volume, but related bank and network fees will no longer pass through its revenue and cost-of-revenue lines.

“The only thing that changes now is the cost of bank and networks comes out of our revenue as well as our cost of revenue, and this did not impact gross profit at all,” Kangwankij said.

For the full year, Marqeta maintained its gross-profit growth outlook of 11% to 12%, while reducing its net-revenue growth outlook by one percentage point to 11% to 12%. The company raised its expected adjusted EBITDA growth rate to the low-to-mid-30% range from a prior outlook in the low 30% range. Full-year GAAP net income is expected to be between $135 million and $140 million, including the $107 million non-cash tax benefit.

Marqeta ended the quarter with $698 million in cash and short-term investments. During the third quarter, it repurchased 700,000 shares at an average price of $16.25, leaving $140 million available under its share-repurchase authorization as of Sept. 30.

About Marqeta (NASDAQ:MQ)

Marqeta, Inc is a financial technology company that provides a modern card-issuing and payment-processing platform. Its infrastructure enables businesses to create, launch and manage physical, virtual and tokenized payment cards through application programming interfaces (APIs), without building a complete payments system internally.

The company's platform supports card authorization and transaction processing, digital wallets, payment tokenization, fraud prevention and configurable spending controls.

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