How to compare companies' financials with Claude: Visa, Mastercard, American Express and PayPal side by side

All outputs are real tool calls to the Equibles MCP server from 21 October 2026, trimmed.

Comparing companies sounds like pulling the same number for each one. The traps are in the details: fiscal years that end in different months, figures restated after the fact, and valuation ratios that don't mean the same thing for a lender as for a network.

Here's the workflow I use with an AI agent, run on four payment companies.

Connect it first

In Claude, open Customize → Connectors → Discover, search for Equibles, click Connect to Claude and Authorize, then switch it on in a chat from + → Connectors. In ChatGPT: Plugins, search Equibles, Install plugin. In Claude Code, claude mcp add --transport http equibles https://mcp.equibles.com/mcp and then /mcp to sign in. The free plan covers 100 requests a day; other clients are in the setup docs.

1. Same concept, same fiscal year

The prompt: "Using Equibles, compare FY2025 revenue and net income for V, MA, AXP and PYPL." The agent calls CompareFinancialFact once per concept. I added the margin:

Look at the last column first. Visa's fiscal year ends in September, so its "2025" runs from October 2024 to September 2025, a quarter earlier than the other three. The tool follows each company's own fiscal calendar and shows the period end so this can't slip by. Step 3 fixes it with a common date.

2. Growth, on restated figures

"Now FY2024 revenue for the same four."

The FY2024 rows come with filing dates in 2025 and 2026: each value is the latest restated one, taken from the newer 10-K. That's what you want for a growth rate, since both years are then on the same accounting basis.

3. Valuation on a common date

"Show valuation multiples for each." GetValuationMultiples uses the twelve months ended 30 June 2026 for all four, which also solves the fiscal-calendar problem:

Three things to read before the numbers:

• A dash is never an estimate. Visa's P/E is blank because no diluted EPS was proved for those four quarters, and American Express's EV/EBIT is blank because no operating income is tagged. The tool leaves a gap rather than fill it.
• Lenders break enterprise-value ratios. American Express funds card loans with deposits and debt, so EV and EBIT don't describe it the way they describe a payment network. For a lender, P/E is the row to compare.
• Each peer median is its own cohort. The tool compares every company with similar-size peers in its industry, so PayPal's P/E of 10.80× sits against a 12.11× median of nine peers, while American Express's 19.36× sits against 12.11× from a different five. Compare a company with its own median, not one median with another.

The prompt I reuse

Using Equibles, for <TICKERS>:
1. Compare revenue and net income for one fiscal year, with each period
   end, and add net margin.
2. Add the prior year and compute growth on the restated figures.
3. Show TTM valuation multiples on a common date; explain every dash and
   which ratios don't apply to lenders.

What a peer table can't tell you

• Business model. Two networks that don't lend, a card issuer that does, and a digital wallet: the same line item measures different businesses.
• Where growth comes from. Segment and geographic splits need GetRevenueBreakdown.
• Today's price. Market caps are the latest exchange snapshot, so the multiples move with the stocks.

Each company's statements and multiples are also on its financials page, like Visa financials and Mastercard financials.

Nothing here is investment advice.