Jeffery Yabuki
Analyst · any time. Now I will turn the call over to Eric Nelson, Vice President of Investor Relations at Fiserv
Thanks, Eric. So great job on your inaugural call. Good afternoon, everyone. Before I get to our results, let me thank each of you who joined us for our Annual Investor Conference, either in person or digitally, on October 9. We provided an update on our key solutions and how we're executing against our algorithm for growth. This formula sets forth how we intend to enhance revenue growth across our cadre of market-leading businesses and also our plans to scale our newer, innovation-based solutions, such as Popmoney and Mobiliti. We believe we are on track to achieve increasing levels of high-quality revenue growth. We also highlighted the important opportunities to expand operating margin, further enhance our already compelling free cash flow per share and our consistent and disciplined approach to capital. Our strategies are well aligned with the evolving market. We're enthusiastic about our multiple opportunities to create additional value for clients, associates and you, our shareholders. Now on to the results. We're pleased with our performance for the quarter and year-to-date and are well positioned to achieve our expectations for the full year. We again generated strong earnings growth, with adjusted EPS increasing 9% to $1.27 in the quarter and is up 13% to $3.75 for the first 9 months of the year. Adjusted revenue increased 5% in the quarter and is up 4% through September 30. Adjusted internal revenue growth was 4% in the quarter and 3% year-to-date. Adjusted operating margin increased sharply to 29.8%, 80 basis points over the prior year's quarter and up 50 basis points sequentially. Adjusted operating margin to date has increased 40 basis points to 29.3%, led by strong performance in the Financial segment and solid execution of our operational efficiency objectives. Free cash flow increased 18% to $203 million compared with the third quarter of 2011, driven by strong growth in operating earnings and favorable shifts in working capital. Year-to-date free cash flow was down slightly from the prior year period to $501 million, primarily related to higher tax payments and working capital shifts early this year. We expect a strong free cash flow quarter to end the year. For 2012, we identified 3 enterprise priorities, when taken together, represent key elements of our formula to create sustained shareholder value. First, to deliver an increased level of high-quality revenue growth and meet our earnings commitments. Next, to center the Fiserv culture on growth, leading to more clients, deeper relationships and a larger share of our strategic solutions. And third, to deliver innovation that increases differentiation and enhances results for our clients. Revenue growth accelerated in the quarter, as we benefited from robust sales and strong performance across our leading solutions such as Debit Account Processing and Mobile. The combination of increased operating leverage and continued achievement of operational effectiveness goals resulted in 8% growth in adjusted operating income in the quarter and 80 basis points of margin expansion. Adjusted EPS growth was solid in the quarter as well. Even net of a negative comparative tax impact, it has increased 13% through September 30. We're on track for another year of double-digit adjusted EPS growth. Our focus on building a culture of growth continues to translate to strong sales performance. After the expected slow start to the year, the second and third quarters had strong, above-quarter performance, which included another major bill payment win, Regions Bank, that we announced at Investors Day. That transaction, along with the signing of signing of TD Bank in the second quarter, is factual evidence that financial institutions continue to desire the significant product differentiation offered by CheckFree RXP. As we shared at Investor Day, we expect to see revenue growth acceleration in our bill payment business in 2013 and well beyond. We had more than 140 new Mobiliti signings in the quarter, driven largely by existing relationships in our account processing and online banking client base. As of quarter's end, we have nearly 1,300 mobile banking clients and a still significant growth opportunity, driven by the combination of mobile adoption and new FI clients. Our goal of delivering differentiation and innovation that leads to better results for our clients progressed well in the quarter. We have several solutions that straddle the unique intersection of strong consumer value and financial institution revenue. A great example is Popmoney. We signed more than 100 new clients in the quarter and now have over 1,700 institutions in the social payments network. We added BB&T Corporation, one of the largest financial holding companies in the U.S. to the Popmoney network, which now includes 14 of the top 30 banks. We believe realtime transaction processing is a critical Fiserv differentiator. This capability should provide new revenue opportunities for our clients, which we believe will ultimately be measured in the billions. And it's important institutions can provide unique user experiences in areas such as social payments, expedited bill pay and SpotPay, our new product, which allows small business customers to accept card-based payments through a mobile phone, courtesy of their own financial institution. And as we shared at Investor Day, our concept of expanding realtime movement is real now. In live Popmoney demonstrations, we've successfully debited the sender's account and credited the receiver's account at a different institution within 20 seconds of initiating the transaction. Integrating our proprietary DDA-based payments applications with our PIN-debit Network should create exceptional value for our clients and their customers, which will translate to attractive new growth for Fiserv, a true win-win. With that, let me hand the discussion to Tom, who will provide more detail on our financial results.