Transcripts
Fiserv, Inc.'s management answers for the business every quarter. These are the exchanges that explain it best — verbatim, from the call transcripts preserved in Sources. Each link opens the full transcript at that page in a new tab.
Q1 2026 Earnings Call — Q1 2026
The current state of the turnaround: what management says is working, what is not yet in the numbers, and the growth algorithm it now owns. · Open the full transcript →
Why improving execution is deliberately not yet visible in reported revenue — the definition of a transition year.
Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): So our execution is improving across both businesses, but as expected, that progress is not yet visible in our reported financial results as we are still lapping a higher mix of nonrecurring revenue, fueling the lingering impacts from prior client service challenges and absorbing the incremental expense from investments that will drive long-term client-focused growth, all necessary and important elements of our transition year in 2026. We look forward to the second half of the year and 2027 when we expect our operating performance will be more fully visible in our financial results.
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Clover decomposed: reported 6% versus mid-teens underlying, and what the two ends of the GPV range actually assume.
Paul Todd (Chief Financial Officer): Clover revenue grew 6% in Q1. However, excluding higher nonrecurring revenue from the first quarter of 2025, Clover revenue growth would have been in the mid-teens. Clover revenue from Payment Processing grew 10%, more in line with volume trends. As we noted in February, we expect similar trends for Clover in Q2 with this period representing the peak in nonrecurring impacts and also expect that Clover processing revenue will grow in line with Clover GPV. Clover volume grew over 9% on a reported basis and was in line with our expectations as we saw stable growth, both in the U.S. and in key international markets. Clover volume, excluding the previously discussed gateway conversion, grew 12%. As the previously discussed gateway conversion continues to run off, the delta between Clover reported and ex-Gateway growth will converge. We continue to expect Clover revenue growth in the low double-digits for 2026 and GPV growth of 10% to 15% excluding the Gateway conversion. The lower end represents the core growth rate, while the higher end assumes more significant conversion of non-Clover merchants. […] Value-added Services revenue contributed 27% of Clover revenue in Q1, growing 18% from a year ago, driven by software attach and lending, including Clover Capital.
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The core-bank attrition question answered in full: cause, fixes, and an admission it is still above target.
Tien-Tsin Huang (Analyst, JPMorgan); Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): I wanted to ask just on maybe visibility on the Banking side and retention given some of the bank conversions that you're doing. Just any surprise there? I know the trough comments were made, but I'd love to hear a little bit more detail on attrition and retention, that kind of thing. […] I think broadly on Banking, we continue to be, obviously, very proud of the leading market share position we have in the business and all the support across almost 3,000 banks and credit unions on the core side. As we've said and we said again today, core attrition has been above where we want it to be and getting that back to normal is a significant focus for us. That attrition, as you know, is the result of actions taken over the last several years and especially around the client service front. And we're confident we have the right fixes and the way we're addressing it is the right thing to do. […] Contributing to that is we've significantly increased our client coverage efforts, which was an ask that came directly from the clients. From that has come better service, and we're seeing that show up in both our surveys and anecdotal evidence. And then we've really leveraged a number of different forms of AI to help in call centers, enhancing our client portal experience, accelerating our tech modernization and reducing the books of work we have. Obviously, the decision to support all of our cores was an important one for our clients and has removed a significant amount of perceived pressure for them to switch and obviously, pressure on us. […] Finally, we've taken an advanced approach using AI to measure what we call a Client Health Index across all their experiences with us in terms of pace of change, resolution inquiries, client touch and the like, and it's given us a much better view and perspective of where these clients stand, which allows us to play much more on the offensive side in engaging them. […] I wish it was more visible in the results, but when you go through the underlying KPIs that we have, we feel really good about the progress we're making and our ability to get core revenue-related attrition back down to more normal levels. Ideally we'd like to have none, but of course, you've got M&A and the like. We've had some over history, but getting it back to those historical levels, we feel like we're doing all the right stuff and are on the path to do it; it just takes time and work.
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The growth algorithm in one sentence — company mid-single-digit, Financial Solutions low single-digit, Merchant mid-to-high.
Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): It's hard to go through every single recurring revenue item. Broadly, we think, and we'll talk at Investor Day, that we're a mid-single-digit growth company with Financial Solution being a low single-digit growth company, probably operating flattish today on a clean basi and Merchant being mid- to high-single-digit. Our plan is to make the progress visible in the financial results. But to Paul's point, you look at the underlying volumes, they track closely to what we're talking about from a high level and maintaining and growing that volume step—the revenue will come behind it and start to match.
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Pressed on whether flat Financial Solutions can reach the target by 2027, management commits to timing but not to results yet.
William Nance (Analyst, Goldman Sachs); Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): Mike, if I could just follow up on the comment you made. I think you've been pretty clear in sort of telegraphing what you think the right growth rate is for the business and the message you expect to deliver at the Investor Day coming up. I'm wondering, to the comment that maybe the underlying growth in Financial Solutions is more or less flat right now, and obviously, the investments that you're making that are weighing on margins right now. As you look out into next year, you've talked about seeing the benefits of some of the improved execution coming through the numbers. Is it your expectation that the company can actually get to that level of performance exiting the year and into 2027? Or are there lingering performance and attrition issues in Financial Solutions or investments you want to make on the margin front that could delay that? […] I'd say go back to the One Fiserv comments: we are confident we're taking the right actions. We have to execute against those and complete them. The team has rallied around those. We're laser-focused on them. We know the fundamentals we have to get in the right place to be a mid-single-digit grower, and the efforts we need to get there are fully funded and fully resourced. We've brought in great talent to complement existing talent. I feel good about the execution plan. We have to go do it. As you exit 2026, you'll start to see comparables shift and become more favorable into Q4, and 2027 is the first full year where you can see clear visible growth. We'll give you more at Investor Day the underlying volume drivers that support our belief. We've got two great TAMs in Merchant and Banking, both in strong positions and investment modes. Whether it's an enterprise merchant or an FI, there's a lot to work on. The environmental support is there, the fundamental volumes are there, and we must put ourselves in a position where execution resilience and service are much crisper than they've been. That's the path we're on, and I'm confident we're taking the right actions to get to where we need to be to position the business to deliver growth. We have to execute.
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A rare plain statement on roughly 20% of company revenue: non-Clover SMB is not a growth business, it is a conversion pool.
Paul Todd (Chief Financial Officer); question from Timothy Chiodo (Analyst, UBS): As it relates to organic growth, we do have comparative dynamics—Argentina creates noise. As I said on our last call, we're expecting our non-Clover SMB business to have slight growth this year. We were down low single digits in the first quarter. So organically, we were down in the low single digits for the first quarter and would expect similar performance in the second quarter if everything holds. For the back half, incremental ISV growth is coming in and some international growth, particularly in Brazil, ramps. Generally speaking, non-Clover SMB is not a growth business for us, but relative to the overall picture, we're managing it in a more systemic way than in the past. We're being mindful about how we approach moving that business to Clover over time in the right way. The end goal is to move as much of that business to Clover where the product an features fit those merchants. Takis and team will cover that in more detail at Investor Day.
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Q4 and Full Year 2025 Earnings Call — Q4 2025
The 2026 plan laid out in full: the guidance architecture, Clover yield math, and the banking franchise damage being repaired. · Open the full transcript →
How Clover is actually distributed — bank referral, ISO/agent, 600 direct sellers — and the first deliberate non-Clover conversions.
Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): We grew and further diversified Clover distribution channels across the board in Q4, including adding 47 banks to the Clover referral ecosystem, refreshing our merchant relationship with Truist, which will now support businesses of all sizes across the bank's large footprint including 1,900 branches, expanding our industry-leading ISO and agent platforms, continuing to add direct salespeople in North America, where we have over 600 today, launching a new digital tool for our bank partners, which integrates Clover merchan onboarding into the bank's digital banking experience, introducing AI prospecting tools to assist with the identification and conversion of high-value merchants. […] building on the takeaways from prior pilots we began targeting select non-Clover SMB merchants in the U.S. with a Clover offering. While these efforts have been narrow in scope and it's still early, we have seen some promising results with benefits for our clients and higher revenue yield for us. Our efforts here will remain deliberate, ensuring we prioritize the right experience and fit for the client.
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The innovation portfolio with numbers attached: Commerce Hub, Finxact, CashFlow Central adoption rather than adjectives.
Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): Commerce Hub is progressing well towards a fully integrated cloud-native global omnichannel gateway, supporting a best-in-class enterprise value proposition. In Q4, we launched this capability across the Americas and are ramping a leading video streaming service provider client. The platform continues to scale in North America, processing over $200 billion in 2025, a greater than 200% increase year-over-year. In Financial Solutions, we continued to invest in modernizing our core banking and card issuer processing platforms. In banking, we are building cloud-based, real-time, secure, API-enabled and more open capabilities, a modernization effort that began in 2022. At our Client Forum in September, we made it clear that there will be no forced upgrades or conversions as part of this effort, reflecting feedback we receive from our customers. With respect to our newest course, we went live with our first clients on CoreAdvance and Finxact continues to perform exceptionally well and gained broad recognition for innovation. The Finxact platform surpassed 30 million total accounts and positions, representing over 80% growth in 2025 and is becoming the ledger of choice for fintechs and digital banks. In card issuer processing, we continue to modernize Optis and build out Vision Next, our next-gen card issuing platform. On Optis, we signed a multiyear extension with PNC and a new mandate with Fidem Financial, a fast-growing credit card asset manager that has acquired over $15 billion in assets. Fiserv will power Fidem's new co-branded credit card programs. We are now live with 5 FI clients on CashFlow Central with over 100,000 of their SMBs using our transformative all-in-one AR/AP payments platform and seeing real value. With over 155 FI signed since launch and a pipeline of over 400 prospects, we are excited about CashFlow Central's long-term potential.
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The whole 2026 guide in one passage: 1–3% organic, first-half trough, margin shaped 31–32% then 35–36%, ~90% cash conversion.
Paul Todd (Chief Financial Officer): We expect 2026 organic revenue growth in the range of 1% to 3% with Merchant Solutions revenue growth in the mid-single digits and Financial Solutions flat to slightly down. Reflecting higher nonrecurring revenue a year ago, we expect adjusted revenue growth in both quarters of the first half of 2026 to decline to the low single digits, with Q2 representing the trough in terms of the rate of decline. […] Putting it all together, we expect adjusted EPS of $8 to $8.30. Similar to our expectations around revenue, we expect a different level of operating margins in the first and second halves of the year. In the first half, we expect adjusted operating margin of 31% to 32%, with Q1 representing the low point just below 30%. In the second half of the year, we expect adjusted operating margin of 35% to 36% with Q4 representing the high point in the year. For the year, this translates into approximately 34% adjusted operating margin. To complete our strategic investments, we expect capital expenditures to remain approximately flat with 2025 levels and end the year with a leverage ratio of approximately 3x. We expect free cash flow conversion of approximately 90% of adjusted net income for the year, in line with historical levels. As always, Q1 will be our trough for free cash flow conversion. Finally, to the extent we generate any excess cash from business and asset optimization activities, we intend to deploy this additional cash to share repurchase.
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Where Clover yield comes from: 15–20% revenue against 10–15% volume means value-added services, not price.
Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer); Paul Todd (Chief Financial Officer); question from Andrew Jeffrey (Analyst, William Blair): By incorporating more custom and value-added solutions into the Clover platform, we anticipate that yield will increase over time. We are confident in this longterm outlook and are focused on creating a compelling value proposition for the approximately $4 billion in revenue coming from non-Clover small and medium-sized businesses. […] I think it would be fair to say we're very pleased with yield maintenance for 2025 overall, and we don't expect any change really on the yield side in 2026. And you can kind of see that based on our volume growth being in line with our revenue growth on a kind of overall kind of high level. And I think as it relates to go forward, like Mike commented, as we look at like vertical expansions, you would see 15% to 20% kind of growth on the revenue side in the longer term against that 10% to 15% growth, which speaks to a higher yield on a go-forward basis as we penetrate more in Clover Capital, as we do more on the software side. As Mike said, as we do more on the platform side, you'd see kind of that yield maintenance or even slight yield improvement on a go-forward basis so that's consistent with our strategy.
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The candid admission on core banking: prior conversion strategy cost market share, especially among smaller credit unions.
Andrew Schmidt (Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets); Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): Just a quick 2-parter on the banking segment. Mike, I hear your comments on the sort of the core client retention. Maybe just a little bit more color on what you're seeing there. It sounds like you've been very proactive in being high touch with clients. And then just beyond the core, can you talk about how you view the portfolio today? Do you need additional capabilities, thinking digital, et cetera? Or do you feel good about where you're at from a capability perspective? […] Thank you for your question. Regarding the core aspect, as mentioned in my opening remarks, we are actively pursuing core modernization. We take pride in our strong market share in core banking and the support we provide to numerous banks and credit unions nationwide. We initiated the core modernization process in 2022, focusing on building a cloud-based, real time, secure API with more open capabilities. This plan is still in effect and is beneficial for all involved. At our Client Forum in September, we made it clear based on client feedback that there are no mandatory conversions in this modernization process. Changes can be made at the clients' convenience. However, due to actions taken over the past couple of years, including previous core conversion strategies, we've lost some market share, particularly among smaller credit unions, which is disappointing in terms of banking segment results. We believe that our new approach discussed at the Forum, along with various client commitment and significant investments in both technology and personnel, will lead to a return to positive growth in banking, which we expect to be in the low single digits. Importantly, we have full control over the solutions and are investing directly to implement them. These are not unsolvable issues; they are necessary steps for our clients.
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Why the gateway-conversion drag never simply laps, and what November weakness did and did not signal.
Jason Kupferberg (Analyst, Wells Fargo); Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): I wanted to come back to Clover for a second. If you can talk about what drove some of the improvement in December, January, you said to 11%. And then the midpoint of your guide for '26 would suggest maybe a little bit more acceleration of this December, January levels so what drove the improvement in December, January? And then what are the drivers of some of the potential further improvement as you go through 2026. And if you can just remind us also when you think we lap the gateway conversion, that would be really helpful. Yes. […] Certainly. I’d like to break this down into a few parts. First, December and January returned to our expected performance for the quarter. We anticipated an 11% growth in Q3, but we fell short of that due to the macro weakness we noticed in November, which also affected others in our industry. One of our goals is to improve our yield, but we also want to lessen our reliance on the restaurant and retail sectors, particularly restaurants, which struggled in November. This was a macro anomaly for that month, and we then observed volumes pick up again to what we expected for the quarter, which is encouraging. Looking at the long-term picture, if we exclude the gateway conversion from the past couple of years, our growth has fluctuated between high single digits to low double digits each quarter. In 2025, we maintained growth rates between 9% and 11%, which we believe reflects the core growth of our business, sometimes regardless of macro conditions. Regarding the gateway conversion, it’s important to understand that there isn’t a straightforward anniversary process for it. When we stop converting clients over a gateway, we face ongoing loss over time. As long as we have clients converted to a gateway in the system, any loss from those clients will affect our growth going forward, although the impact will lessen over time. This year, it represented about 3 points, but we expect it to decrease in 2026 and beyond. I hope that clarifies things.
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Q3 2025 Earnings Call — Q3 2025
The reset call. Management dismantles its own medium-term targets, quantifies what Argentina had been contributing, and takes the questions. · Open the full transcript →
The reset stated plainly: a new, largely recurring revenue baseline chosen over near-term results.
Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): While disappointing, the actions we are taking are driven by a rigorous analysis of the company conducted during the third quarter and represent a critical and necessary reset and a revitalizing moment for the company. We are capitalizing on this opportunity to refocus on the pillars that have long distinguished Fiserv, including exceptional client service, world class execution, value-added technology solutions and cutting-edge innovation. […] Second, we have established a new revenue and earnings baseline consisting of high-quality, structural, largely recurring revenues driven by meeting our clients' needs and aspirations. Going forward, we are shifting our strategic focus and our culture to prioritize sustainable client-focused opportunities over short-term initiatives. While this pivot will negatively impact near-term results, our team has embraced this change, and it will best position us for predictable and sustainable growth and margins.
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The single most important disclosure in the corpus: strip out Argentina and 2023–24 growth was mid-single-digit, not 12–16%.
Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): Fiserv's medium-term organic revenue growth target of 9% to 12% was originally set in 2023 amidst high interest rates and inflation in Argentina, which greatly benefits our anticipation business there and ultimately drove organic revenue growth in Argentina of 257% in 2023 and 329% in 2024. While we have previously sized the impact of excess Argentinian interest rates and inflation on our organic growth, today, we're providing a holistic view of how Argentina has impacted Fiserv's performance. Specifically, Argentina contributed over 5 percentage points to our 12% organic growth rate in 2023 and roughly 10 percentage points to our 16% organic growth in 2024. This is highlighted on Slide 9. Therefore, excluding Argentina, the company's overall organic revenue growth rate was in the mid-single digits in both 2023 and 2024. Year-to-date, Argentina's organic growth rate is 56%, adding roughly 2 percentage points to our overall organic growth rate of just over 5%. Notably, in addition to strong organic revenue growth, our Argentinian business comes with adjusted operating income margins that are roughly double overall Fiserv levels.
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Two self-inflicted causes named: investments deferred to protect margin, and revenue pulled forward by short-term initiatives.
Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): The third major factor impacting our results is that over the last few years, decisions to defer certain investments and cut certain costs improved margins in the short term, but are now limiting our ability to serve clients in a world-class way, execute product launches to our standards and grow revenue to our full potential. The good news on this front is that these circumstances are entirely fixable. And with the actions we have taken over the last few months, along with today's announcements, we are making these investments and are on our way back to the highest standards. And the fourth and final factor is that Fiserv's recent results have increasingly relied on short-term initiatives. These initiatives place too much emphasis on pursuing in-quarter results as opposed to building long-term relationships by prioritizing business that both meets our clients' needs and comes with high recurring revenue. As a result, we have made the decision to deprioritize these short-term revenue and expense initiatives, which, of course, has some near-term impact on our growth and profitability. […] Another important takeaway from our analysis is that nothing at Fiserv is fundamentally broken. Our businesses are well positioned. The markets we serve are growing. We are expanding into new Total Addressable Markets (TAM) and our clients have a near insatiable appetite for innovative technology and payment solutions. This reset is about aligning structural versus cyclical growth and sustainable revenues and expenses versus short-term results, particularly as it relates to the company's original guidance. While there are certainly some areas where we are dissatisfied with our recent performance, we found that our challenges are largely driven by our own doing, not the result of a material change in our positioning.
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What walking away from fees costs in the printed number: Q4 Clover growth of ~10% versus high teens without the reversal.
Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): For the full year 2025, we expect Clover revenue to be $3.3 billion versus the original guidance of $3.5 billion. Q4 Clover revenue growth is expected to be below recent levels at approximately 10%, reflecting the deprioritization of certain short-term revenue initiatives, including the elimination of certain fees in Q4 that were initiated a year ago and are no longer consistent with our business strategy. Adjusting for these, Q4 revenue growth would be in the high teens.
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Asked directly how long Fiserv was over-earning, management gives the ex-Argentina series: 6%, 6%, 3%.
Tien-Tsin Huang (Analyst, JPMorgan); Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): Lots to ask here. Just maybe, Mike, I'll ask it this way. How long was Fiserv over-earning with deferred investments and this focus on short-term revenue and expense initiatives that you called out? And of course, it's early. But how long will it take? And at what cost for Fiserv to reverse this and get back to what I call a hallmark of double-digit EPS growth, you did call that out double-digit EPS growth. And of course, I'm getting the question to you, given your analysis and over the last few months, is double-digit EPS growth the right target? And why are you confident that that's the case? […] Thank you. I'll start by saying that in the six months I've been here, we've made some adjustments based on the analysis from Q2, which involved a thorough review with a diverse group of internal and external advisors. We examined every aspect of the company and, as I mentioned earlier, we have a strong company with valuable assets and growth opportunities, and we are eager to capitalize on that potential. […] Removing Argentina from the analysis, if we look at the growth rates for 2023, 2024, and year-to-date in 2025, we see 6% growth, 6% growth, and 3% growth, respectively. While there are some fluctuations in these figures due to the short-term initiatives, they reflect our current position as a company that is capable of mid-single-digit growth, likely on the lower end of that range. We've also recognized specific areas for improvement within our businesses, and we are already addressing these with targeted investments. We recently presented to 4,500 clients and made commitments to enhance our focus on these issues. We realized many of the challenges were self-imposed, but we know how to resolve them. We've made leadership changes to better manage these businesses, bringing in two highly effective leaders with proven track records. Our perspective is that we currently have low mid-single-digit growth, with a clear path through our investments to achieve more solid mid-single-digit growth and the potential for further acceleration. We'll provide updated medium-term guidance during our Investor Day, but our free cash flow generation remains strong. Our capital management strategy hasn't changed; we plan to invest organically and make selective acquisitions, and we'll continue to buy back shares as needed. We're maintaining our leverage guidelines, which together support our objective of achieving double-digit EPS growth. We're focused on operating the business effectively, maintaining high execution standards, serving our clients well, and ensuring long-term value for our shareholders. That's the overview I wanted to share.
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The rebuilt growth math, business by business: core banking low single digits, issuing low-to-mid, sixteen cores down to five.
Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer); question from Darrin Peller (Analyst, Wolfe Research): Yes, I’ll address the last part first and then Paul will provide specific numbers. We have completed our review and while we continue to learn, the pace of learning has stabilized. We are very confident that the figures and baseline we are providing today accurately represent the current state of the company. We are assembling a leadership team to complement our existing team, enabling us to execute effectively. I have strong confidence in the numbers we are sharing today. We have thoroughly evaluated the company and sought external insights. While we recognize that not everything is perfect, there are areas needing improvement. However, at the moment, we are focused on sustainable growth beyond cyclical factors. For instance, despite cyclical influences like those seen in Argentina, we believe that we can grow faster than mid-single digits. In terms of our two business segments, it's important to analyze them separately. We have a top-tier issuing business within banking that is gaining market share and is foundational to our strategy in the fast-evolving embedded finance sector. With platforms like Finxact, Commerce Hub, and the Payfare acquisition, we see substantial potential in the digital commerce and payment landscape. Regarding our core banking segment, there are certain areas performing exceptionally well, while others, as we discussed at the forum, have not met our execution standards. We need to consolidate our core systems from sixteen to five; this is crucial for modernizing our technology for our clients, and while we haven’t executed this perfectly, we’ve corrected our course. Currently, this should yield low single-digit growth in that segment. There are promising developments with our surrounding offerings, like XD and CashFlow Central, but we need to improve our execution to bring these products to market more effectively. In summary, our core banking business is expected to grow in low single digits, and our progress with Finxact is strong as we gain new customers. The issuing business is also performing well in that low to mid-single-digit range. When we combine these components, we project a mid-single-digit growth trajectory over time.
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The hardest question of the cycle — how a recurring-revenue segment broke two months after a reset — and an unhedged answer.
Harshita Rawat (Analyst, Bernstein); Michael Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): Mike, I would like to follow up on the Financial Solutions business. I acknowledge the recent expectations reset and the deprioritization you mentioned. However, I want to inquire about the third quarter. You reduced the full-year guidance three months ago when the quarter had just begun. Back then, I believe we learned that the team had re-evaluated everything. I’m trying to understand how things could change so dramatically in just two months in a segment that is essentially recurring. Additionally, I’m curious about the lack of visibility regarding this significant level of revenue weakness during the quarter. […] I appreciate the question and understand it. This was not a reset I anticipated. In July, about 10 weeks into my role, I focused on underwriting some key projects that were contributing to the company's original 10% to 12% growth guidance. We successfully reevaluated those larger projects, and their performance has generally stayed on track since then. However, as we faced unexpected financial surprises at the start of Q3, it led to a more thorough review of our financials, prompted by feedback from our clients. This analysis revealed some additional assumptions that needed reassessment, including factors that were largely beyond our control, such as macroeconomic conditions and industry trends that we initially expected to behave differently. We also identified various assumptions outside of the major projects that, even with effective execution, would have made it challenging to accomplish everything concurrently. Along with significant productivity initiatives and sales activities, there were numerous shorter-term initiatives driven by our clients' businesses that were crucial for meeting our guidance. Gaining a deeper understanding of these factors led to some dissatisfaction with our processes, resulting in leadership changes. Today, I believe we have established a solid baseline for growth. The original 10% to 12% guidance has been thoroughly examined over the past five to six months. I am confident that the numbers we have now accurately reflect our company's structure, and we've provided an outlook from which we can grow, backed by a team ready to effectively execute the business, which is an excellent operation to manage.
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Q2 2025 Earnings Call — Q2 2025
The first crack, three months before the reset: the guide trimmed to its low end while the growth story was still being defended. · Open the full transcript →
The first cut, explained as timing rather than substance — a framing withdrawn one quarter later.
Michael Patrick Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): The 2025 guidance, which called for 10% to 12% organic revenue growth on top of the 16% growth we achieved in 2024, had always assumed a significant growth ramp on the back half of the year. This trajectory was based on the successful launch of a long and granular list of new products and strategic initiatives as well as a relatively strong macroeconomic outlook. Our updated guidance reflects the fact that some of those launches and initiatives are taking longer than we had planned. Some of that is on us and some is driven by other factors that we don't fully control, but we are confident that we will capture the full strategic and financial benefits, and only the timing of realizing them has been extended. And to a lesser degree, our update reflects economic conditions that we have seen versus what had been assumed in the plan. As a result, we have refined our full year organic revenue growth guidance to approximately 10%, which is at the low end of our guidance range. And to be clear, we are maintaining our guidance for $3.5 billion of Clover revenue this year.
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The three sources of Clover revenue above payment volume: VAS attach, hardware, and pricing.
Michael Patrick Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): Clover revenue grew 30% in Q2, highlighting the strength of our full business operating system approach. There are three key contributors to Clover's revenue. First, VAS penetration of 24%, which was up from 20% a year ago. This was in line with Q1 levels and demonstrates good progress towards our year-end goal of 25%. Total VAS revenue grew 52%, driven by both software sales and capital, which includes Clover Capital and anticipation in Latin America. Second, hardware sales remained healthy and within the expected long-term range of revenue contribution. And finally, pricing and other services, including data.
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Clover Capital sized against Toast and Square: penetration is low because risk appetite, not demand, is the constraint.
Timothy Edward Chiodo (Analyst, UBS); Michael Patrick Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): I want to start by digging into Clover Capital a little bit more. So you've talked about being meaningfully underpenetrated versus some of the peers when we look at Toast and Square. We would agree that you are well below their penetration levels in capital. Could you talk a little bit about some of the activities that you're doing to unlock that TAM? In other words, we gather that with some of the wholesale ISOs or potentially bank partners, you're not able to access the full set of merchants to sell them Clover Capital, and we gather there are things that are happening to help unlock some of that. Maybe you could put some context around that level of penetration today and where you could see it getting to over the medium term. […] Penetration is very low in both our non-Clover SMB base and our Clover SMB base. We are careful with our risk management and have implemented various practices regarding offer operations, merchant negotiations, presentation, and pricing for Clover Capital. We have begun making refinements this quarter but are still in the early stages of developing a comprehensive approach to Clover Capital. We believe there is significant potential for growth within our current risk appetite, and perhaps we can expand that appetite over time. Given our current penetration rates, we are taking less risk than our competitors. We see Clover Capital as a valuable product for our merchants; they appreciate it and rely on it. The total addressable market is significant, and we plan to make several operational, pricing, and risk management decisions in the coming months and quarters, expecting positive progress. This quarter marked the beginning of these efforts.
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Ten weeks in, the new CEO takes the guide to the bottom of the range and calls it transparency.
Michael Patrick Lyons (Chief Executive Officer); question from Darrin David Peller (Analyst, Wolfe Research): Yes, it's Mike. I'll begin by discussing the overall organic growth rate for the company, which we have adjusted to approximately 10% from 10% to 12%. I’ve been in this role for about 10 weeks, and I’ve had the chance to gain a clearer understanding of the main drivers of our business, the status of our strategic initiatives, and what was included in our full year guidance. This guidance always expected significant growth in the latter half of the year due to the rollout of several projects and initiatives. We have a comprehensive and strong list that we have thoroughly evaluated, and these initiatives are promising. It is mainly about the timing of bringing them to market. As I mentioned earlier, we remain confident in achieving the full financial and strategic benefits of these initiatives; it’s just a matter of when they will be implemented. The product pipelines we are about to introduce are robust, our clients are interested, and the technology is sound, which gives us a lot of confidence. The adjustment from 10% to 12% down to 10% reflects our insights gained after 6.5 months into the year regarding our product rollouts and our emphasis on quality during these rollouts. The forecast indicates growth of 12% in the latter half of the year, leading us back to the lower end of our original guidance range. We aim to provide you with this level of transparency as we progress through the year, allowing us to narrow the range and reduce variability.
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What a Fiserv guidance range actually encoded: an 11% baseline plan, with the top end reserved for macro and initiative upside.
Robert W. Hau (Chief Financial Officer): Tien-Tsin, I think the way I think about it is our original guidance at 10% to 12%, our baseline plan was midpoint, 11%. To get to 12%, we factored in the opportunity for a slightly better macro environment, a little bit faster business, some of the credit and course surrounds that Mike just talked about that would have gotten us a little bit faster, stronger would have gotten us to the top end. And now that we've seen a bit choppier recovery in the macro economy, a little bit slower on the initiatives, again, both on things inside and outside of things in our control and outside our control, a little bit slower, puts us at the bottom end of the range, which is what we're guiding to at this point.
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The strategic claim behind Clover: an operating system with under 10% U.S. penetration, not a point-of-sale product.
Michael Patrick Lyons (Chief Executive Officer): We are focused on developing the Clover platform across several key areas to create a comprehensive business operating platform rather than just a point-of-sale payments device. As we advance Clover and enhance our solutions for businesses, we continue to introduce new capabilities each quarter. We are only beginning to explore the potential of Clover, with numerous work streams aimed at elevating the platform. There is considerable excitement about integrating more AI into Clover, such as for inventory optimization, smart menu builders, and better staffing management, all of which enhance service delivery. It's an evolutionary process, and it's crucial to recognize that we are constructing a business operating system. In the United States, we have less than 10% market penetration, and virtually none internationally. Our goal is to help businesses operate more effectively, rather than competing in the point-of-sale software and hardware space. This is our strategic direction, and we find it very promising. Clover is an outstanding platform.
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Hardware economics, on the record: not a loss leader, good margin, steady mid-teens share of Clover revenue.
Robert W. Hau (Chief Financial Officer): And Will, just to add to that, overall, we talk about Clover's operating system. It's a payments, it's a software, it's a hardware solution. Your question about hardware being good growth this year, absolutely. Your comment about that will not likely reoccur, I'll generally disagree with. This is a hardware business with software and payments. First of all, we make good margin on our hardware. It is not something we give away. It's not a loss leader. And our hardware, if you look at the hardware revenue as a percent of overall Clover revenue, it's been relatively consistent in kind of the mid-teens range for a few years. We continu to invest in developing new hardware. We think we've got a best-in-class, world-class hardware, and we continue to build out that capability and provide that best-in-class hardware to our client base. So we think that continues to sell into the future.
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Q4 and Full Year 2023 Earnings Call — Q4 2023
The framework that later broke, in its own words: the two-segment construct, the Argentina arithmetic, and the Clover targets. · Open the full transcript →
The clearest zero-to-understanding description of Fiserv: a growth half, a recurring half, and the intersection between them.
Frank Bisignano (Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer): Under our new structure, half of our company, Merchant Solutions, is a leader in the high growth payments market where SMBs and enterprises are embracing the benefits of an operating system with seamless integration of value-added solutions. The other half, Financial Solutions, is a leader in the high recurring revenue financial IT software and services market, helping small and medium sized financial institutions level the playing field with larger banks and helping larger banks migrate to next generation technology. This combination of growth and consistency has served us well. And our business model is even more compelling at the intersection of these two businesses. We continue to see strong opportunity to cross-sell and integrate merchant and financial solutions to help financial institutions better serve their merchant customers and enable merchants to retain customers with new financial services offerings. Fisery is unique in its positioning at the center of these two important ecosystems.
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The 2024 guide as originally framed, with seven of the fifteen-plus points of organic growth attributed to Argentina up front.
Frank Bisignano (Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer): Turning to the outlook for 2024, we expect total company organic revenue growth of 15% to 17%, inclusive of an estimated 7 points of growth from excess revenue in Argentina, driven by significantly higher inflation and interest in the Argentina merchant business, following the government's steep peso devaluation in mid-December. We expect continued margin improvement in 2024 with at least 100 basis points of adjusted operating margin expansion. And adjusted earnings per share should grow 14% to 16%, reaching $8.55 to $8.70.
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The Argentina walk in detail — and the FX counterbalance that leaves adjusted revenue, margin and EPS unchanged.
David Togut (Analyst, Evercore ISI); Robert Hau (Chief Financial Officer): So first is a 4 PPT increase in the organic revenue growth guide for 2024, it looks like about three points of that relate specifically to an increase in Argentina inflation. So if that's correct, could you walk through how your operating organic revenue growth assumptions have changed by segment versus the initial guide at the November Investor Day? Thanks. […] Yes, David, good morning. And your assessment is right on the mark. The total company organic revenue growth went up from back in November. We said 11% to 13%. We now expect 15% to 17%. We previously indicated the impact, the favorable impact of higher than normal interest and inflation in Argentina, would drive about six points of growth to the Merchant segment, or about three points to the total company. We now expect that excess inflation and interest is about seven points of growth to the total company. So essentially, the increase in organic revenue growth is really attributed to higher inflation and interest out of Argentina. The underlying, more normal organic growth of the Merchant segment and of the company remain consistent with what we expected and saw back in November. The other element, of course, as we talked about in November is, there is a natural counterbalance in our adjusted revenue, and in our income statement that higher excess inflation and interest rate also drives a higher currency variation, or FX headwind. And that also increased about four points from the November. So net, our adjusted revenue, our EPS, our operating margins, very consistent, isolating out just that Argentina impact.
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Where the $3.5bn and $4.5bn Clover targets came from, and the ARPU-through-penetration logic behind them.
David Togut (Analyst, Evercore ISI); Robert Hau (Chief Financial Officer); Frank Bisignano (Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer): What are your expectations for Clover revenue growth in 2024? Would you expect continued acceleration? And then if so, any callouts? […] Yes. From a Clover standpoint, you saw the acceleration of revenue in the fourth quarter to 30%. We've talked quite a bit about the Clover growth rate, accelerating into our Investor Day commitment. Actually, both back in our March of 2022 call-out where we really focused in on Clover overall, where we gave an outlook to 2025. We updated that back in November to 2026. So adding another year of our outlook, we continue to believe, obviously, that we'll deliver against that $10 billion for the total company and $3.5 billion for Clover in 2025. And then $4.5 billion for Clover in 2026. We feel good about the trajectory. I wouldn't suggest that we're going to get 30% every single quarter, but there's a lot of elements that are driving that growth, and we feel good about the overall trajectory. […] I also would highlight the penetration rate is the number we talked about. We are focused on growing ARPU, and you see that penetration rate up at 19%, which tracks the path we believe we're on. So Clover continues to do its job. The distribution networks we have are unparalleled, and we're bringing more function into it, and more geography into it.
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The central Clover unit economic: revenue outgrows volume only as long as software attach and channel mix keep improving.
Tien-Tsin Huang (Analyst, JPMorgan); Robert Hau (Chief Financial Officer): Wanted to follow on with David's question just on the merchant side with volume and transaction growth. The spread there is really still quite favorable, both total and with Clover. So looking out, should we expect some kind of cyclical mean reversion with that, tightening under the value-added services promotions, and you mentioned pricing as well. So, what can we assume there since we're all trying to do the benchmarking exercise? Thanks. […] Tien-Tsin, I think certainly we've continued to see that spread between volume and revenue, and it's something that is actually part of our strategic plan to grow to that $3.5 billion and $4.5 billion in Clover and $10 billion to $12 billion for merchant by '25 and '26. Ultimately what it comes down to is, as we continue to sell more software, more value-added services and more additional capabilities to our merchants, you're going to see revenue grow faster than volume. The spread will ebb and flow across different quarters, but we continue to see good opportunity to sell value-added services. That penetration reached 19% in the quarter, up about three to four points from a year ago, as we march towards the 27% by 2026. You'll continue to see great revenue growth overall. And certainly, there's the channel mix, more direct and ISV relative to where we are today, and that will continue to benefit that.
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Why a missed license quarter can be good news: the shift from upfront licences to hosted ASP contracts trades timing for economics.
Darrin Peller (Analyst, Wolfe Research); Robert Hau (Chief Financial Officer): On the Fintech side, just to start, I know you expected tough comps, and you obviously called out the software license sales shifting to the ASP side impacting revenues. When we think about what that means in terms of spreading out revenues across a period of time now, in terms of more recurring revenues, maybe just help u understand your anticipation for that segment again. I know you had initially raised the combined Payments and Fintech outlook a little bit when you had your Investor Day. So is that still on track? And if you could just revisit the drivers giving you confidence in both segments. […] Darrin, good morning. When we sign a license deal, typically that's a three or five-year license and you get a large license transaction. December is always a pretty high month for license activity, and you get ongoing maintenance, but license is certainly the big chunk. When a client instead goes to an ASP contract, you book that over the multi-year period monthly. We feel good; ultimately that's actually a better economic transaction for us, so we like that transition. If you look at 2023's results and combine the two bank- and credit union-facing segments, Fintech and payments and network, we did about 6% organic growth on a combined basis. If you look at our outlook for 2024, we reiterated what we said back in November. We expect that combined segment or the new segment Financial Solutions, which is largely a combination of the existing Fintech and payments, to be in that 5% to 7% range and actually accelerate into 2025 and beyond up to 6% to 8%. We feel good about the overall growth of that business. The product portfolio, adding things like Cash Flow Central, selling more payment solutions, and the benefits of Fintech as that goes live and gets deeper into the marketplace give us confidence. We feel good about our ability to continue to grow our capability selling into the banks and credit unions.
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Clover distribution by channel, and why the direct business grows fastest while remaining the smallest piece.
Timothy Chiodo (Analyst, UBS); Robert Hau (Chief Financial Officer): You mentioned in the prepared remarks a little bit of channel mix shift for Clover. I was hoping you could provide some directional color — broad strokes across the 2023 cohort of new merchants or volume that came on to Clover, whether it be just kind of order of magnitude across direct sales, bank partners, whether they be JV or non-JV, and then of course wholesale and retail ISO. I ask partially because clearly differentiation is partially due to the distribution here, but also so that we could get a better sense on the portion of revenues that are hitting adjusted revenue versus maybe being netted out or coming below the line in the equity income line? […] Broadly, we continue to expand our distribution capabilities. We have a long track record of ISO and ISV partners and bank channel partners. We have traditionally not had a big direct business. That continues to grow, but we also continue to grow meaningfully in the ISV channels with expansion of ISV capability into Clover. Having that Clover asset makes us a partner of choice, not only for ISVs, but also the bank channels. As a percent of growth, our direct business is probably growing the fastest, but it's the smallest piece. It's the newest piece of the organization, but we're seeing good growth across the board.
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More calls
Q1 2025 Earnings Call — Q1 2025 · 14 pages · The CEO handover itself — Bisignano's last call and Lyons' first, plus the four international acquisitions and the Clover country build-out that expanded the footprint to 13 markets. · Open →
Q4 and Full Year 2024 Earnings Call — Q4 2024 · 11 pages · Where the 2025 targets that were later dismantled were set: 10% to 12% organic growth, $10.10 to $10.30 adjusted EPS, and segment ranges of 12%–15% Merchant and 6%–8% Financial Solutions. · Open →
Q3 2024 Earnings Call — Q3 2024 · 11 pages · The peak-confidence quarter, useful as a baseline for how the same assets and the $4.5 billion Clover target were described a year before the reset. · Open →
Q2 2024 Earnings Call — Q2 2024 · 12 pages · Mid-2024 detail on Clover value-added-solutions attach and the segment reorganisation into Merchant Solutions and Financial Solutions. · Open →
Q1 2024 Earnings Call — Q1 2024 · 10 pages · The first quarter reported under the new two-segment structure, for readers reconciling the old Acceptance/Payments/Fintech lines to today's disclosure. · Open →
Q3 2023 Earnings Call — Q3 2023 · 11 pages · The medium-term framework as it stood before the November 2023 investor conference, including the original Clover and segment growth ranges. · Open →
Q4 and Full Year 2021 Earnings Call — Q4 2021 · 32 pages · The post-merger integration era under the old segment names — worth a look for First Data synergy framing, though this copy is a noisy third-party scan. · Open →