Fiserv, Inc.Full report →1 / 14
FISVNASDAQThe short version

Fiserv, Inc.

Fiserv runs the account-processing systems inside thousands of US banks and credit unions and acquires card payments for millions of merchants. Its shares have fallen 80% from a March 2025 peak.

From $237.79 on 3 March 2025 to $47.18 on 22 June 2026, and $55.67 on 29 July 2026 — a 476-day fall, 44 points of it in one session.
Mkt cap $24.9BP/E FY27E 6.2×
$55.67
Close, 29 Jul 2026
$30.6bn
Market capitalisation
11.15%
Adjusted FCF yield
−80.2%
Fall from the 2025 peak
SwipeScroll▾
Snapshot

Fiserv, Inc. in numbers

Price
$55.67as of 2026-07-29
Mkt cap
$24.9B
12m perf
−60.9%
3m ADV
$387.9M
Year to Dec (USD)2023202420252026E2027E2028E
Sales–––20.0B20.9B21.6B
EBITDA8.2B––8.7B9.0B9.3B
EBIT5.0B5.9B5.8B6.7B7.2B7.6B
EBIT margin–––33.6%34.4%35.3%
EPS4.985.386.348.128.9310.02
P/E11.2×10.3×8.8×6.9×6.2×5.6×
FCF yield15.1%20.3%17.2%15.6%17.2%18.8%
Consensus: S&P Capital IQ (CapIQ) · as of 2026-07-31Derived from run data; ratios use the latest price.
IThe business
What it sells

Fiserv runs the core software inside thousands of banks and acquires card volume for millions of merchants.

FY2025 revenue by segment
Total FY2025 revenue $21,193m. Source: FY2025 Form 10-K segment note.
  • Two client bases that never meet. Merchant Solutions acquires and processes card transactions, centred on the Clover point-of-sale platform. Financial Solutions runs deposit and loan ledgers, debit networks and card programs for banks and credit unions.
  • Paid per account and per transaction. Eighty percent of FY2025 revenue was processing and services fees under multi-year contracts, which management describes as non-discretionary for its clients. About 84% of revenue is earned in the US and Canada.
  • Scale. $21,193m of FY2025 revenue and $5,818m of operating income, from 38,000 employees. Revenue compounded at 6.9% a year from FY2021.
Where the profit sits

The better margin sits in the smaller segment — and that is the half now shrinking.

FY2025 segment revenue and operating income
Corporate and Other absorbed a $2,064m operating loss, mostly acquisition-intangible amortisation.
  • Financial Solutions. $4,380m of segment operating income on $9,664m of revenue — a 45.3% margin, 46% of company revenue and 56% of the two segments' combined operating income.
  • Merchant Solutions. $3,502m on $10,140m, a 34.5% margin. After the Corporate and Other loss, consolidated operating income was $5,818m rather than the $7,882m the segments report.
  • The turn. Financial Solutions organic revenue fell 6% in the March 2026 quarter with all three business lines negative, and segment adjusted operating margin fell to 38.1% from 47.5%.
IIIThe story now
The fit

Does not fit the framework (P1 not met); contested: X2, P2, P3c, P3d, P5

P1 not met
Year-10 gate4-0, probability 0.605, spread 0.09
11.15%
Adjusted FCF yield+115 bps on the 10% bar
0.61
Trial: damage is temporaryspread 0.24 across three judges
Low
Confidence tierdivergence above 0.20
  • The gate settles it. Year-10 durability is binary by construction, and all four jury seats returned not met, across two model families, at a trimmed-mean probability of 0.605 and a spread of 0.09 — the tightest agreement in the run.
  • The counter-fact, in the same breath. Everything under the gate reads better: an 11.15% adjusted free-cash-flow yield, volume at 7.4 times the pre-fall median, a share count down 19.7% in five years. None of it changes the answer.
  • Five criteria came back contested — the promotion screen, FCF consistency, the yield bar, the forward path and the diagnosis. No universe test was missed and no exclusion screen was hit.
The dislocation

One session on 29 October 2025 took 44% off the shares, the largest one-day fall in a record back to 1990.

The five decisive days
DateWhat happenedMoveVolume
24 Apr 2025Q1 results; full-year guidance affirmed−18.5%6.8×
15 May 2025CFO remarks on Clover volume−16.2%9.3×
23 Jul 2025Q2 results; organic growth refined to ~10%−13.8%11.6×
29 Oct 2025Guidance reset; leadership overhaul−44.0%41.4×
15 Jun 2026CEO resignation announced−10.9%10.7×
Volume shown as a multiple of the 180-day pre-peak median.
  • The trigger is filed and dated. The 29 October 2025 release cut FY2025 adjusted EPS guidance from a $10.225 midpoint to $8.55, a 16.4% reduction, and withdrew the medium-term 9-12% growth target on the same call.
  • Capitulation is unanimous. Volume reached 7.39 times the pre-peak median against the framework's 2-times line — 41.4 times on the reset day, with 67.2% of the share count changing hands in the four weeks that followed.
  • The counter-fact. Volume has never normalised: 1.7 to 4.9 times the pre-fall median in every month since April 2025, still 2.4 times in July 2026. That reads as a register still turning over, not a single flush.
Damage math

Equity value fell $101bn; the cash the reset removed prices at $51bn even under a permanent shift.

Price damage against NPV damage
Anchor B measures against the pre-reset growth algorithm; anchor A against FY2024 realised free cash flow.
  • The gap. Measured against the algorithm management withdrew, a permanent level shift computes to $50.7bn of lost NPV against $101.3bn of lost equity value — a gap of $50.6bn, or 2.0 times. Against the milder anchor the ratio is 4.5 times.
  • The counter-fact. Enterprise value fell 62.2%, not 76.8%, because net debt rose $4.6bn over the window; and the March 2025 peak multiple of 23 times was struck on a path management later attributed in part to an Argentine inflation windfall.
  • The ruling. Blind judges put the probability that the impairment is temporary at 0.61, on readings of 0.62, 0.38 and 0.61. The criterion is recorded contested, and a 0.125 reading-order effect is unresolved.
Year-10 durability

Revenue is not what fails the gate. Cash is.

Reported free cash flow
On the framework's adjusted basis the FY2025 figure is $3,408m, down 20.7% from $4,297m.
  • The revenue leg holds. Revenue rose in each of the nine years from FY2017 to FY2025, $5,696m to $21,193m, so the three-consecutive-year decline disqualifier is not triggered; even 1-3% growth compounded for a decade leaves year-10 revenue higher.
  • The cash leg fails. Free cash flow less share-based compensation less the trailing five-year average of acquisition spend fell 20.7% in FY2025, to $3,408m. Q1 2026 operating margin was 18.3% against 27.2%, and capex runs 8.3% of revenue.
  • The counter-fact is a commitment, not a result. The May 2026 Investor Day committed to 4-6% revenue growth for 2027-2029, a 2029 margin above 37% and over $13.5bn of cumulative free cash flow. The CEO who presented it resigned 29 days later.
Self-help

The share count keeps falling, but the buyback shrank 91% as the price collapsed.

Quarterly share repurchase spend
Average price paid per share, by quarter: $223, $183, $143, $66, $61.
  • The engine is real. Diluted shares fell from 683.4m in FY2020 to 549.0m in FY2025, minus 4.29% a year, on $22,987m of executed repurchases — 32.2m shares for $5.6bn in FY2025 alone. The rising-count hard fail does not apply.
  • The allocation test fails. Q4 2025: $200m of stock bought against over $1bn of debt repaid. Q1 2026: $200m again, while managing the leverage ratio. June 2026, with the shares at $47.18: a EUR 1.0bn notes issue funding a tender, not buybacks.
  • The price paid. The 174m shares retired since FY2019 cost about $132 each against today's $55.67, and no shares were bought in December 2025 or January 2026.
The clock

The recovery is a company-specific bridge, and about half of it is a comparison lapsing.

Second-half 2026 reacceleration bridge
Management's own waterfall from the May 2026 Investor Day, in percentage points of growth.
  • Half arithmetic, half execution. The bridge runs from low-single-digit first-half growth to 6-8%-plus in the second half, of which roughly 3.5 percentage points is a non-recurring 2025 comparison lapsing rather than new demand.
  • The next test is dated. Q2 2026 reports pre-market on 6 August 2026 — the guided trough quarter, and the first print under a chief executive appointed on 14 June 2026, two days after his predecessor resigned.
  • Base rates from its own record. At 80.2% this fall is 1.56 times deeper than the worst of six prior 30%-plus episodes since 1990. Those six round-tripped in a median of 19.8 months; the two nearest in depth took 41 to 42.
IVThe price
Yield against the bar

An 11.15% adjusted yield clears the 10% bar by 115 basis points — if that is the applicable bar.

Adjusted free-cash-flow yield
  • The arithmetic. Adjusted free cash flow of $3,408m on a $30,563m market capitalisation is 11.15%. Against the 10% moderate bar that is 115 basis points through; against the 25% levered bar it is 1,385 basis points short.
  • Which bar applies is unsettled. Filed net debt to EBITDA is 3.12 times, just over the 3.0 cut-off; excluding finance leases it is 2.89, and management reports 3.0 against a 2.5-3.0 target. Two seats took each bar, and P3c split 2-2.
  • The counter-fact. The three-year average yield as the formula literally computes it is 8.42%, 158 basis points below even the moderate bar, distorted by the 2019 First Data window; excluding it, 11.71%.
The forward path

Consensus cash flow clears the moderate bar without a recovery, and split the jury 2-2 anyway.

Consensus free cash flow
After deducting share-based compensation and averaged acquisition spend, FY2026 is 10.33% and FY2027 12.25%.
  • The path. Consensus free cash flow of $3,880m for FY2026 and $4,280m for FY2027 becomes 10.33% and 12.25% adjusted — clearing 10%, and 1,467 and 1,275 basis points short of 25%.
  • The split. Seat probabilities were 0.72, 0.73, 0.06 and 0.12: a trimmed mean of 0.42 on a spread of 0.67, the widest disagreement in the run. The run's skeptic weakened the claim rather than letting it stand.
  • The counter-fact. FY2026 headroom over the moderate bar is 33 basis points, and the plan behind it needs roughly 400 basis points of second-half margin expansion that no reported quarter has yet shown.
Re-rating math

No price at bar-yield can be computed: the bar and normalised adjusted FCF are both missing.

Price reference points
The three-times figure is $55.67 multiplied by three — arithmetic, not a target.
  • What the tally records. The applicable bar, normalised adjusted free cash flow, the implied market capitalisation at bar-yield and the upside to it are all null, because the balance-sheet class is unresolved and the adjusted series is not computable.
  • What can be stated. A tripling from the $55.67 close is $167.01, which would still leave the shares roughly 30% below the March 2025 peak. The consensus mean target of $66.63 is 19.7% above the close and 72.0% below that peak.
  • Estimates are drifting the other way. FY2027 adjusted EPS consensus moved from $9.15 to $8.93 over 180 days, and 69.4% of ratings are neutral.
Market capitalisation uses the feature file's 549.0m share count; the latest filed count is 533.3m, which overstates market value by about 3% and widens rather than narrows the gaps above.
What to watch

The gate fails on cash, not revenue — and the arithmetic beneath it is the strongest in the report.

Read the full report →

This distils a fixed fit test built tab by tab; the workings, citations and contested readings sit in the full report.

Compiled from the full report · 2026-07-31 · For information, not investment advice.