Visa Finance Chief Vasant Prabhu to Depart in September

Mr. Prabhu, who also served as vice chair, will assist Visa with the search for and onboarding of his successor before stepping down from his role, the company said.

The move comes as

Ryan McInerney,

the card company’s longtime president, became the company’s new chief executive earlier this month. 

“Vasant has played an integral role in shaping Visa’s strategic transformation as we evolved our business to a network of networks, introduced new revenue growth drivers including new flows and value added services and executed acquisitions to advance our strategy,” Mr. McInerney said in a press release on Mr. Prabhu’s departure. 

The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on what it is looking for in a new CFO. 

Visa in January reported $7.94 billion in revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31, up 12.4% from the prior-year period. Its net income rose 5.6% for the quarter to $4.18 billion. 

Mr. Prabhu’s successor will likely focus on mergers and acquisitions, particularly in the open-banking sector that provides third-party access to financial data, and manage controls around cybersecurity risks, said Robert Napoli, co-head of financial technology and services at investment bank William Blair & Co. “Being very deeply engaged on the M&A front and the integration of acquisitions is critical,” Mr. Napoli said. 

A new CFO will also likely help build out certain merchant services, known as its value-added services business, said

Moshe Katri,

a managing director at Wedbush Securities Inc., a financial services firm. 

“The new CFO is going to be focusing on continuing to help support that part of the business, which I believe is extremely important on the monetization front,” Mr. Katri said.

Write to Mark Maurer at [email protected]