Welcome to the Fiserv Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer session begins following the presentation. As a reminder, today’s call is being recorded. At this time, I will turn the call over to Julie Chariell, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations at Fiserv.

Thank you, and good morning. With me on the call today are Frank Bisignano, our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Bob Hau, our Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings release and supplemental materials for the quarter and full year are available on the Investor Relations section of fiserv.com. Please refer to these materials for an explanation of the non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call, along with the reconciliation of those measures to the nearest applicable GAAP measures. Unless otherwise stated, performance references are year-over-year comparisons. Our remarks today will include forward-looking statements about, among other matters, expected operating and financial results and strategic initiatives. Forward-looking statements may differ materially from actual results and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. You should refer to our earnings release for a discussion of these risk factors. And now over to Frank.

Thank you, Julie, and thank you all for joining us today to discuss another double-digit growth year for Fiserv in both organic revenue and adjusted earnings per share. In 2023, we continue to demonstrate our leadership as proven by our financial performance. 12% organic revenue growth, more than 200 basis points of adjusted operating margin expansion, 16% growth in adjusted earnings per share, $4 billion of free cash flow and $4.7 billion return to our shareholders through share repurchase. These results are possible because Fiserv possesses a set of assets that's unparalleled in our industry. From our vast and diverse client base, product portfolio and distribution network, to technology and capital resources, to a deep bench empowered with strategic vision and operational excellence. This combination of assets is how we plan to sustain strong performance. A fundamental aspect of our culture is that we are not satisfied and we continue to push for more. We know that great opportunity remains for continued revenue growth and improved productivity. We laid out several growth strategies at our investor conference in November and we are executing on those every day. At the same time, we continue to identify ways to drive further productivity. Five years ago, we announced the plan to merge First Data in Fiserv. Today, we are a 4.5 year-old company with a 38-year track record of double digit adjusted earnings per share growth. 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…

Thank you, Frank, and good morning, everyone. If you’re following along on our slides, I'll additional cover details on total company and segment performance, starting with our financial metrics and trends on Slide 4. Fourth quarter and full year results reflected our focus on delivering on our commitments with momentum across the business. Total company organic revenue growth was 12% in the quarter with ongoing strength in our Merchant Acceptance and payments and network segments, offset by a decline in the Fintech segment against a very difficult compare. For the full year, total company organic revenue also grew 12% ahead of the guidance we provided in October and November. This performance was led by the Merchant Acceptance segment, which grew 19%. Fourth quarter total company adjusted revenue grew 6% to $4.6 billion and adjusted operating income grew 10% to $1.9 billion, resulting in an adjusted operating margin of 40.7%, an increase of 150 basis points versus the prior year and a sequential improvement of 260 basis points. The 40.7% represents a post-merger high for Fiserv. Our fourth quarter performance brought the full year adjusted operating margin to 37.3%, an increase of 220 basis points over 2022. Fourth quarter adjusted earnings per share increased 15% to $2.19 compared to $1.91 in the prior year. Full year adjusted earnings per share increased 16% to $7.52. Those adjusted EPS results do not include $0.12 per share in expense relating to the significant devaluation of the Argentine peso as part of the government reform package on December 12 last year. This one-day move led to a non-operating, non-cash foreign exchange loss for the revaluation of our local balance sheet as required under GAAP rules for hyperinflation accounting. All other Argentine foreign exchange losses throughout 2023 are included in the adjusted EPS results. Free cash…

Thanks, Bob. I'd like to spend a few minutes highlighting Fiserv's commitment to corporate social responsibility, which we align with business operations and employee engagement to maximize impact. Our next CSR report will be published in the second quarter and will demonstrate continued development of our employee resource groups, the Fiserv Cares Foundation, and our back-to-business program that awards grants to small businesses. To better serve our minority depository institution clients and their communities, we formed an MDI Advisory Council, which includes eight clients and other members. The council in part of our efforts to better collaborate and deliver value through our MDI clients and the communities they serve. Institutional Investor recognized Fiserv for its CSR efforts as the top ESG performer in the payments, processing and IT services sector, a first for the company. Our programmatic efforts earned recognition from prestigious indices like Bloomberg's Gender-Equality Index and the Human Rights Campaign's Equality Index. We also ranked number 1 on the Military Times Best for Vets Employers list. And just last week, we were named one of Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies for 2024, marking the 9th time in 10 years that we received this honorable distinction. While we scored highly in many categories, among the highest was innovation. We are particularly proud of this category recognition as well as other standouts for people leadership, product and service quality, global competitiveness and long-term investment value. As we look ahead to what's coming in 2024, the ongoing advancement of AI is not driven solely by the expanding capabilities of technology but also by the underlying proliferation of data to feed that generative engine. For Fiserv, our data and AI-powered intelligence put us on a path to be an effective user and enabler of AI. We're in the early innings of using…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] For our first question, we'll go to the line of David Togut from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. Good to see the continued acceleration of Clover growth. I'll ask my question in the follow-up, both upfront. 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 growth - the increase in organic revenue growth, is really attributed, to higher inflation and interest expense, 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.

Thanks for that. And then just a quick follow-up. What are your expectations for Clover revenue growth in 2024? Would you expect continued acceleration? And then if so, any call-outs? I know, Frank, you mentioned Brazil rollout in April?

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 would just say, we talked about Brazil. We've worked on that for a long time. You should expect us, to have further country rollouts. You heard us talk about - the Deutsche Bank JV Vert, which has begun to hit some strides and getting traction. You've always heard us talk about beginning to proliferate the ISV channel, and that fundamentally, there was nothing about our back book in that set of numbers, either of course we have done natural 90% new ad and some back book that just converts centrally. And I also would highlight the pen rate, is the number we talked about. We definitely were about growing ARPU, and you see that pen rate up at 19%, which kind of tracks exactly we'll be laying out to 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 so David.

Thanks so much.

Next, we'll go to the line of Tien-Tsin Huang from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks. 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 plus under this 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.

Yes, 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. I think ultimately what it comes down to is, as we continue to sell more software, more value-added services 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, 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.

Right, right more retail stuff, that's good. Glad to hear revenue faster than volume. Just my quick follow-up, then just I mean Frank and Bob you both talked about a lot of good wins, across all the lines here. Just thinking about the outlook for new deal activity in 2024, should we expect, or do you see a lot of large deals, or is it more of a cross-selling wins with some of the new products? What do you see for this coming year here? Thank you.

Well I mean, I think it's all of the above. I mean, I suppose you might be also referring to those CashFlow Central wins we talked about, new product rollout, tremendous opportunity there. It's another area where we're helping out banks generate revenue, deliver better technology products, to their client base. And then we also believe that we have a lot of cross-sell opportunity, but we have a very large pipeline of just play on new wins. And you should expect us, to continue doing what we've been doing. And our expectation is we'll always do more.

And Tien-Tsin, the term cross-sell, is obviously something we use internally quite a bit. We talked to you folks about, ultimately, we have a very wide swath of clients. The U.S. bank deal that we announced this morning on CashFlow Central, that's a big transaction with a large bank, but it's a cross-sell. They are a large client of ours. They currently use CheckFree for their consumers. They'll now expand to CashFlow Central, for their businesses and merchants. And so, we'll continue to see lots of opportunities. It'll sometimes be, "new logos", but also selling additional capabilities to our existing client base.

Good, good, Thank you.

Next, we'll go to the line of Darrin Peller from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Guys, thanks. It's great to see the merchant strength. I do want to touch on a couple of the other segments real quickly. And on the Fintech side, just to start, I know you expected tough comps, and you obviously called out the software license sales, 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 us understand your anticipation, for that segment again. I know you had initially raised the combined Payments in 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, really in both segments.

Yes, Darrin, good morning. So a couple of things. One, when we sign a license deal, typically that's a three or five-year license. 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 you convert, or when a client instead goes to an ASP contract, you book that over the five-year period every single month. On a per account basis, or per transaction per user basis, depending on the product, and depending on the client contracting. 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 you 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 payment, to be in that 5% to 7% range. And actually accelerate into 2025 and beyond up to 6% to 8%. So feel good about the overall growth of that business. The product portfolio, adding things like CashFlow Central, selling more payment solutions, benefits of Fintech as that goes live and gets deeper into the marketplace. We feel good about overall, our ability to continue to grow our capability selling into the banks and credit unions.

Okay. That's helpful. And then just quick follow-up on the merchant side again. Frank, you've talked a lot about the VAS side having a big penetration opportunity up to the mid-20% plus range. I think you had a nice jump this quarter. So, maybe just touch on what drove that, combined with - if you think you have the right assets now, or there's a lot more chatter over potential for tuck-in's and M&A again this year as rates may change. So anything on the horizon for you guys? Thanks guys.

Yes. I mean, we really do like our hands across the Board in the company. You've seen us add things like Fintech, which I think really compliments our ability to compete anywhere, anyhow, along with DNA, which has really proved itself. If you go to a merchant business, we're still largely focused on building out more verticals. That would be retail and services and continuing to complement, what we're doing in Bento. I think - our software stack is strong and we're continuing to add functionality to it. We think our pen rate will continue, to do what we've forecasted. Obviously, we're always looking at opportunities to invest, as a minority investor and you've seen us do that and things like Bento and Fintech and others. Ondot, which ended up being in more than a thousand institutions, tagged to our mobility product to - give an unbelievable experience to a thousand banks. So I think we feel good about our hand. We're always looking at can we add software functionality, and you should expect us to continue, to be great stewards of capital deployment, as I hope you all feel we have been.

Thanks, guys.

Next, we'll go to the line from Timothy Chiodo from UBS. Please go ahead.

Thanks a lot for taking the question. 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. And I ask partially, because clearly the 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?

Yes, I think we tried to give pretty significant transparency around, the last part of that question with "excess inflation" in interest on in Argentina. Just as a side note, our LatAm business in Argentina business is a great business. Obviously, we've got this variation going on, on the "excess", but that's a tremendous business. LatAm overall growth in Clover as we bring Clover down to Brazil. We'll add Mexico later in the year. So, we feel very good about our overall capabilities there. To the first part of the question, I would say broadly we continue to expand our distribution capabilities. We have a long track record of ISO and ISV partners, bank channel partners. We have traditionally not had a big direct business. That continues to grow, but we also continue to grow pretty meaningfully in the ISV channels - with expansion of ISV capability into Clover. And having that Clover asset makes us a pretty significant partner of choice, not only for ISVs, but also the bank channels. We see growth there. As a percent of growth, our direct business, is probably growing the fastest, but a little bit of it's the smallest piece. It's the newest piece of the organization, but we're seeing good growth across the board.

Excellent. Thank you for that.

Next, we'll go to the line of Dan Dolev from Mizuho Securities. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Great results here. My quick first question is on, again, back to the value-added services. Really impressive 40% growth. Can you maybe talk a little bit about the split in '23 between software and capital?

You're asking about 2023?

Yes, the 40% growth that you mentioned in '23.

So, I wouldn't necessarily have a split for you in my fingertips. So, we can look to get that for you. And I think - I would tell you that it's been pretty consistent. Obviously, we always have a relatively large software capital software spending, given the nature of our business, and I think that remains relatively consistent.

Dan, were you asking, if you look at the 40%, what component was largely software and what component was Clover capital? Was that the question you're asking?

Yes, exactly on the value-added service.

It's software dominated. I mean it would be, I'd call it, large majority software.

Sorry, I heard CapEx spending.

Oh, I'm sorry, yes, it's my Israeli accent.

That's okay.

No, it's really excellent.

That's why we got four years here.

And then just my quick follow-up, really impressed by the opportunities in Reg II. I mean, one of the networks commented that this was drag. I would imagine this is a big benefit for Fiserv. Can you maybe talk about the size the opportunity here for STAR and Accel?

Well, as I continue to say, we have been committed to debit network, STAR and Accel, their strategic assets within the company. As Reg II turns into reality. You've heard us talk about nearly 20 wins. Obviously, we compete at every level. There's fabulous competition out there for these transactions. But embedded in what we're looking at is, obviously more opportunity than we had before Reg II and the fact that some of those household names that, you heard like HelloFresh or Lyft, or others give us that opportunity. So, I think it's off to a decent start. It remains to be determined over the longer haul, but we feel good about the Reg II opportunity.

Amazing. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next, we'll go to the line of Jason Kupferberg from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys. I just wanted to follow-up on the Fintech segment and the dynamic you saw there, where you switched kind of from the - or the clients wanted to switch kind of from the license model to more the recurring ASP model. Do you see this as kind of a one-off development with a handful of clients? Is this a broader trend? Just anything you can give us maybe around where that segment sits now in terms of percentage of revenue that's kind of more periodic versus recurring and what you're projecting on that front going forward?

Yes. I think there's a series of factors. I'd go back on the full year 4%, with non-periodic revenue. And clearly, we ultimately sign a number of transactions, but they became ASP instead of license, which we thought we had visibility license. We also like to remind everybody that fourth quarter historically, is where fourth quarter in the last month is where these things happen and going down to the wire. Like it wouldn't any software sales, as I know, having been a large buyer of software for years and jobs I have done. So, I think that - it's not necessarily a trend, but it does have clients, and we saw it last year, too, in different ways. Clients who believe that given regulatory, given cyber, giving a series of factors. The ASP model will help their P&L, and their ability to perform better than the license would have. I think it's an institution-by-institution choice. It's not the first time we've seen it. And I think a lot remains to be determined.

Okay. Good color. Just on a separate note, we saw last month, Fiserv applied for a bank charter in Georgia. Can you just talk about the steps, potential time line to get that application approved, what the benefit to Fiserv would potentially be, whether that's on the cost side, or ability to provide additional solutions to merchants? Thanks.

Well, yes, let me bring pure clarity to what that is, because there's clearly lots of questions about why Fiserv is applying for a bank license. And obviously, before we did that, we talked to the ABA, we communicate to our clients. It's a very specific purpose license that allows for sponsorship of merchant acquiring. Historically, you needed a bank and that's within the Visa and MasterCard rules. And our ability to be able to have an institution for that sole purpose that will allow us, to be a sponsor for our own merchant acquiring in certain instances, will be valuable as we can control more of the outcome than we could before. Very specific purpose very clear to our banks. We're not competing with them. We have great bank partners, as you know, probably the largest bank portfolio in the world. When you take merchant business and all our other businesses, and where our business to help our banks grow. This ultimately supports our smaller banks, who do not have sponsorship and we can bring it. It became more, clear in the merger when we were able to cross-sell, to our community banks and others, which we would have not have that First Data that our ability them ourselves would be very valuable.

Thank you, Frank.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Dave Koning from Baird. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hi, guys. Great year. And I guess my question on merchant. So you guided 25% to 28% organic. And then you talked about 14% benefit from FX and inflation. So, you're down to a core of kind of 11% to 14%, do both North America and international grow in that range, which presumably is taking quite a bit of share?

Yes. So the merchant business overall, obviously, good growth. Our international regions Europe, Latin America, APAC, all growing very nicely. EMEA larger than Latin America, growing a bit slower from an organic standpoint. Broadly our North American business, very high single-digit growth rate. And obviously, the international business is growing meaningfully higher than that given the size of the business and the opportunity to continue to grow and add merchants and sell more services there also. But good business, most definitely in all four regions.

Got you. And just a quick follow-up. FX losses, will you not add those back again through 2024? I know Q4 seems like the anomaly, you won't add those back. And maybe how big do you expect that to be an interest expense in 2024?

Yes. So let me be - make sure we're clear. What we adjusted out was actually not fourth quarter, not December, it was December 12. It was the one day devaluation that the new President of Argentina, put into place to a - little more than a 50% deval, and it was only the impact of revaluing the balance sheet, which in most currencies stays on the balance sheet. But because Argentina is hyperinflation, or highly inflationary, the accounting rules require you to revalue the balance sheet through the income statement. We did that every day of 2022. We did it every day of 2023, with the exception of the one-time significant transact, or significant move that, we felt was really non-normal course, non-operational. So, we dialed that piece out only. All of the other 364 days went through the income statement. And in fact, were larger than what we took in that one day. We have that that will occur in 2024. Obviously, if there's other - another significant deval, we may evaluate that. We're not anticipating that. We think things are "more stabilizing" in Argentina remains to be seen. It's a unique economy. We've got some great leadership down there, that are running our Latin America business that have been through these cycles multiple times, over decades of leadership. So, we feel very good about being able to handle, the kind of ongoing normal things. This one-time one-day deval is what we dialed out.

Got you. Thanks, guys. Great job.

Thank you.

And for our final question, we'll go to the line of Ashwin Shirvaikar from Citi. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hi Frank, hi Bob. I guess my question is, with regards to the cadence of segment revenues and segment margins, what should we expect through the year? Because there are, I think, a couple of factors at least with regards to how, I guess, Argentina impact plays out? Does it reduce through the course of the year? And then Carat, I would imagine, much better back half of the year, because the lack of comp, tough comp, factors like that. I mean, how should we think of cadence through the course of the year?

Yes. I think, first off, broadly, across the company. I don't see a big variation from quarter-to-quarter or first half to second half. There are obviously some specific comparisons within individual segments, or individual margins. But broadly, generally in line across the board with the one nuance in our merchant acceptance business. I would expect organic revenue, to be higher in the first half of the year than in the second half of the year. Because we do anticipate, some improvement in interest rates and inflation in the second half relative, to what's going on there, as the economy deals with some of the things that the government is putting in place hopefully with their expectation that, they ease inflation and interest rates remains to be seen. But of course, that's offset by FX. So on an adjusted revenue basis, from a margin standpoint and EPS, relatively stable. The other thing I would just reiterate, we talked a bit about it in our prepared remarks. Cash flow will definitely have some variation with tailwinds in the second half of the year after some headwinds in the first half. But again, we have a good degree of confidence in the $4.5 billion for the full year.

Got it. And then the quick follow-up is Fiserv's small business index, I guess, how indicative is it, of the health of Fiserv's own client base? And can you comment, generally speaking, on small business health? It seemed to me like your economic assumptions call for more or less a soft landing, but I just want to clarify.

Yes. First off, the latter part, yes, I would agree. We are anticipating, I think, like the rest of the world at this point, a soft landing things seem to be on track for that. A bit softer macro environment, modestly slower GDP in 2024. The FSBI is based upon a very broad set of data that we have across our company that we then extrapolate to the entire U.S. market. So, it is not a direct indication of Fiserv activity. If there are differences in region mix of - we're very strong in restaurant. We might have more restaurants than, we do nail salons, or so we go through the NAICS codes across the country, different industry weightings, different regions. When we take our data and extrapolate it, across the U.S. So it's very much a very real-time indicator of the health of small businesses. Now relative to our performance, we're the largest merchant acquirer in the country. So, if there's variation in the FSBI, you're likely to see variation in Fiserv's results relative to some nuances of different regions, industry weightings, et cetera. But certainly, a strong FSBI indicator index would be good for us, a weaker index would be a headwind for us. We're actually quite proud of that capability not only is it using all of the data we have, by the way, including cash transactions, which obviously, don't manifest themselves in our numbers for merchant acquiring, but we have the data, and it's very real time. We're able to provide that information two days after the month ends. It's not a perfect proxy, but it's a proxy.

Got it. Thank you for all the information.

Thanks.

Well, thank you, everyone, for your attention today. Please feel free to reach out to IR team with any questions. And have a great day.

Thank you all for participating in the Fiserv fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call. That concludes today's call. Please disconnect at this time, and have a great rest of your day.