Welcome to the Fiserv 2023 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. 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 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. Fiserv is off to a strong start in 2023 with first quarter adjusted revenue growth of 10% and adjusted earnings per share of $1.58, up 13%. Adjusted operating margin of 33.6% was up 160 basis points. Organic revenue growth was 13%, above our 7% to 9% outlook for the full year, demonstrating our ability to sustain accelerated growth. Importantly, the growth was multidimensional. It included elevated contributions from card processing, noncard payments and digital banking solutions. Growth was also strong in all 3 of our international regions and in Merchant Acceptance. Investment on behalf of our clients and with our partners is paying off. We believe that accelerating our investment over the last 3 years, both organic and via M&A, has extended our leadership position among fintechs. This counters the narrative over the last few years that many start-ups in the payments and fintech space would disrupt and potentially replace the legacy companies. Our results show that our strategy to innovate and disrupt on behalf of, not in place of, our long-standing bank and merchant customers was on the mark. These competitors have indeed raised the bar for the tech and fintech, but we've met and, in some cases, exceeded that bar with our own investment and innovation. The power of our business model is in the virtuous cycle of generating revenue growth across a scaled business, leading to greater operating margins. That profit produces significant cash to reinvest in the business for faster organic growth and value-accretive acquisitions while the remainder is returned to shareholders through share repurchase. The market has shown that legacy companies across many industries with scale and willingness to innovate will offer sustainable value to clients and shareholders. Let's talk for a moment about…

Thank you, Frank, and good morning, everyone. If you're following along on our slides, I will cover additional detail on total company and segment performance starting with our financial metrics and trends on Slide 4. First quarter results largely outpaced both internal and external expectations. Total company organic revenue growth was 13% in the quarter with strong performance in the Payments and Network segment and continued momentum in our Merchant Acceptance segment. Growth is tracking well ahead of initial guidance for the full year, so we are raising the lower end and now anticipate growth of 8% to 9%, which considers economist forecasts for slower consumer spending and bank lending in the second half of this year. We note, however, that we are not seeing signs that these measures are slowing meaningfully at this time. First quarter total company adjusted revenue grew 10% to $4.3 billion and adjusted operating income grew 15% to $1.4 billion, resulting in adjusted operating margin of 33.6%, an increase of 160 basis points. First quarter adjusted earnings per share increased 13% to $1.58 compared to $1.40 in the prior year. Free cash flow came in at $861 million for the quarter, up 43%, driven by improved working capital. We remain confident in achieving our outlook of $3.8 billion in free cash flow this year. Based on higher organic revenue growth, coupled with our focus on operational excellence, which supports our margin expansion outlook of more than 125 basis points, we are raising our full year adjusted EPS guidance range from the previous $7.25 to $7.40 to a new range of $7.30 to $7.40, representing growth of 12% to 14% over 2022. Now looking to our segment results starting on Slide 5. Organic revenue growth in the Merchant Acceptance segment was a strong 18% in the…

Thanks, Bob. Before wrapping up, I want to discuss our ESG efforts. Our approach to corporate, social, responsibility and ESG is one of the ways our business produces better outcomes for our clients, shareholders and associates. Let me share some highlights of our soon-to-be published annual CSR report. First, our ongoing dedication to the progress of our associates through professional development. In 2022, we filled 45% of exempt roles with internal Fiserv associates. Second, our continued investment in minority, women, veteran, ethnically diverse, LGBTQ+ and disability-owned businesses through our back-to-business program in the U.S. and U.K. We have awarded more than 1,600 grants to eligible merchants since the inception of the program. Third, our commitment to continue to improve our collection and disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions and energy data. Not only have we aligned our 2022 CSR report with the Task Force on Climate-related Disclosures framework, but we have also provided 3 areas of data and a foundation for measuring the impact of our ongoing GHG and energy initiatives. These factors are reflected and being named to Forbes List of America's Best Large Employers, which is based on a poll of employee recommendations released in the first quarter. We are equally proud of another recognition received in the first quarter as one of America's Most Innovative Companies by Fortune. I started off this discussion by highlighting the importance of the investment in innovation, and this is another proof point on just how seriously we take technology innovation on behalf of customers and our future. This time of year is often marked by the release of ranking figures tabulated for the prior year. And my time in banking left me with an affinity for league tables that I know you also share. I'm pleased to report that Fiserv has retained its #1 position in 8 categories: core account processing; merchant acquiring; mobile banking; online banking; issuer processing; bill payment; person-to-person payments; and account transfers. And that brings me back to where we started our discussion today. The importance of scale in sustaining investment and driving innovation. I thank the 41,000 employees of Fiserv who helped get and keep us here. I know that I speak for all of them when I say, we intend to maintain the privileged position we hold. And now operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Tien-Tsin Huang from JPMorgan.

Just wanted to maybe ask you to elaborate a little bit more on the month-to-month trends, including April. I heard some of the commentary on consumer spend and gas. But also curious around bank IT spending. I know you lifted the lower end of your outlook. Sounds like you feel confident in the timing of implementations on deals. So if you could just maybe elaborate on that and a little bit more on the consumer side, that would be great.

I'd say as much turmoil as we had in March, volumes were very high. You hear us talk about what I call a backlog, meaning our books told that being implemented right now, we expect that to be very strong, [ wouldn't ] in the second half. Demand, still very high from financial institutions. I've spent a lot of time with our client base. And the demand for digital, you heard us talk about the demand for Finxact, also our clients are building bigger businesses than trying to gain share also. So we feel good about the bank IT spend. And we feel good about our position with our client base right now. Hope that answers your question.

Just my follow-up then, if you don't mind just -- I know you've called out the Uber win on the STAR and Accel networks for CNP routing. We've been -- I think, I've asked you a few times, Frank, on Reg II. So you mentioned a strong pipeline. You see a burst in potential deals and revenue leading up to that? Or is this going to trickle into the second half of the year? Just trying to understand the...

I think it's second half and beyond. I think it's probably more a '24 than a '23. We should see some of it in '23, but I think you'll see more of it in '24.

Next, we'll go to the line of Ramsey El-Assal from Barclays.

I wanted to ask you about the spread between merchant volume and revenues, which widened a little bit this quarter. If you could just update us on the primary drivers of that spread, product mix, geographic mix, pricing, other factors. And also just on the sustainability of those drivers in terms of driving revenue over the year.

Yes, Ramsey. As you've heard us talk about, there's lots of variation quarter-to-quarter in terms of that spread that you talk about. There's a combination of things like mix of small businesses versus enterprise of hardware versus processing. As you heard, we introduced some new hardware in the last few months. We've got some more coming in the balance of the year. That will drive it mix of international -- there are 3 regions, LatAm, EMEA and APAC with particular strength in LatAm and in APAC right now. More penetration of value-added services. You heard us talk about that stepping up 150 basis points to 17% in the quarter. Mix of PayFacs and ISVs and ISOs. So lots of different elements, which is why we try to push on tracking our overall revenue growth. And as you've heard us say, we're focused on getting more merchants and selling more to those merchants. And we're seeing that benefit the last several quarters, and we expect that to continue as we march towards our goal of $10 billion of revenue in this segment by 2025.

Okay. So quite a few different factors contributing there. A follow-up for me is just on the international growth and merchant. It seemed just incredibly impressive. What are the kind of common threads between the different markets where -- that are helping to drive that growth? Is there anything that's going on outside the U.S. that's sparking that kind of growth?

Well, I think you've watched us build out our international business for years. I mean, there was a point in time where we didn't have a business. In Brazil as an example, and then we've built it out. You heard us talk about Caixa. That's still ramping up. When you look across Asia Pac, you could see us winning business there. So I think it's a tried and true as having our feet completely embedded on the ground in terms of our capability. In some cases, Clover leads. But it's always been an investment for us in innovation, running a global franchise. And I think on top of it, it's beyond the merchant. It's issuer along with it, which allows the payment segment also to get the benefit of our geographic dispersity. So it's a continuation of our strategy we laid out going back to 2020. And we'll continue to invest in those markets. We like the growth in those markets. We run those regions separately, and we feel great about our leadership on the ground there, too.

Ramsey, I think that's one of the distinctions for us, and it's been one of the keys to our success. We have local leadership. We don't have an international business. We have 3 regions, and those 3 regions are run by local leaders who are physically present in those regions and know those regions. We operate as a global business, and so products and solutions. Clover is a global solution but it's brought to those regions through those local regional leaders. And of course, across all of the regions, we continue to be the full partner of choice, and bank partners are one of the key methods. Frank talked about Caixa. In Europe, we announced our Deutsche Bank joint venture. We've got partnerships in Asia Pac, in Singapore and in India, et cetera. So it's a global reach with a very local leadership.

Next, we'll go to the line of Lisa Ellis from MoffettNathanson.

Good stuff here. Frank, you highlighted Fiserv's ongoing readiness efforts related to the rollout of FedNow coming in a few months. Can you just elaborate a bit on how you anticipate and I guess maybe how quickly you expect FedNow to begin impacting Fiserv's business and where we'll see that benefit?

Yes. I mean, we've always had a philosophy that we are a commerce enabler, right? So as new payment types and changes to payment types, just how we do with Zelle. If you go back to places like Apple Pay, it's just a philosophical belief that we are here to help our clients grow their business. We are here on purpose-driven method to help them run their business better. And when new initiatives like FedNow come along, and we have thousands of banks and credit unions across the country that are looking for different payment methodologies to allow them to deliver for their clients who are going to enable it. So we partner obviously with the Fed on this. I see it as another payment type. I think it's good for our large institutions and our smallest. And I suspect it will get volume. It's -- for us, it's a very good choice to enable payments, just like Zelle was a very good choice to enable payments. So we're pretty excited. Adoption will drive all. It will be a single integrated interface to allow our clients to be able to come in seamlessly through our network and I look forward to reporting on it when we talk next quarter.

Terrific. And then maybe just for my follow-up, I'll ask about investment areas because you did call out how Finxact, Ondot and some of your other recent acquisitions are having a very noticeable positive impact on Fiserv. So just looking forward, what are some of your priority investment areas like sort of the hot areas right now, [ yielding ] either for organic or inorganic investment?

Well, I would say you have to start with a series of items. Carat, Clover, we're leaning heavily on both of those. I think we've grown them organically very well. But we've also added BentoBox, Merchant One, Nextable. So you'll see us do both. I think we have a very, very strong track record. Starting with Clover, moving to Ondot, moving to BentoBox, Finxact of bringing founders in and helping them grow their business at a different level, right? I think you can see a vertical focus. You see us with driving value-added services. So I would say that's a large part of the merchant story, and that will happen in the U.S. and within our regions also. I think when you think about Finxact, you think about what I feel is the best next-generation platform out there. And both Finxact and DNA are very, very strong assets. We do have great assets like Signature also, but when you think about the buildout, you should think about us taking Finxact and DNA to the next level, to the best cloud platform in the industry between the 2 by far. And when you see the investment we're making to bring Walmart up, and they're up and running in the early stages, that will industrialize us in that platform beyond anyone's expectations when we acquired it. If you look at our payments areas, we will continue to bring in the issuing area a lot of digital innovation. We're cloud enabling those platforms to take them to the next level. I think you've seen that we've been hugely successful in the issuing area even as late as Desjardins and Target coming on. So we'll continue to invest in those platforms, growing out and bring more value-added services there, more digital capability there also. I think along with that, what we're doing with things like SpendLabs and -- is we're opening up a whole new SMB opportunity within our portfolio that we think will transfer itself whole -- our whole organization. And we believe deeply in SMB and the combo of SpendLabs and Clover and other assets that we brought onboard, and it will really allow us to even have more wallet from our SMB population. And then Ondot, you saw us take something that was a card control, card access capability and bring it into the mobile banking platforms of over 1,000 institutions. So I think you also look at the speed in which we ramp these products, the way we integrate them into the company. We think we have a pretty strong expertise in that and you can count on that, continually driving future growth for the company.

Next, we'll go to the line of Timothy Chiodo from Credit Suisse.

Great. I want to dig in a little bit more on the recent STAR and Accel wins. So you mentioned numerous of those, the Uber, the large merchant acquirer last quarter and more in the pipeline. I want to just recap the value proposition. When you're speaking with these acquirers and merchants, I'm assuming part of it is lower interchange, network fees. There might be a bundled sales approach. There might be an authorization angle. If you could recap those and maybe add to the list. And then lastly, if at all possible, if you could just comment directionally in terms of market share goals. Is the goal for U.S. online debit for STAR and Accel to be in a similar position to your share for the in-store debit market in the U.S.

So first, I think you did a pretty good job. So thank you, in describing the opportunity. And I would say, yes, we're in the client's office every day, right? Large institutions, and we're talking to them about our full capability. I'd say we get a lot of imbalance from large institutions because if you're the third debit network, I think it's a very strong position. And the combo of STAR and Accel is very, very powerful. It's good for our merchants, it's good for our issuers. And I don't want to lose that, it's a 2-sided benefit. That benefit is us having invested in these products for a long time and consistently felt that it was a value-add to our clients, both large and small. It is about technical capability, not just about a lower price, right? Of course, every one of our businesses as the industry would call them merchants, I think of them as businesses. And always working on how to get a better client experience and how to lower the cost of acceptance. We're here to provide them the enablement they need. When you think about market share, you hear us rattle off those #1s and then we rattle off #3 in debit. I think that's a pretty privileged position. Those are formidable and fabulous institutions, 1 and 2. So our job is to give our client choice, right? And if we give them choice, we do come with an all-inclusive capable set of assets that we deliver to clients. It could be a cost debit routing. It's the capabilities of Reg II. It's also the pay by bank capability that you heard about. Over time, it will potentially be things like FedNow and Zelle capability. Our job is to have the bundle, have the capability, help both issuers and merchants be able to get a better outcome. And I think we're uniquely positioned out of everybody in the industry. It's really the power of having a merchant business and issuing business, a banking business. And we're a horizontal company that allows us to partner cross-sell businesses to give the best solution for the clients. And that's why sometimes when we look at it, we look at it, how did we deliver on the top in total? And how did we deliver in margin in total and making sure we're doing the best job for our clients and our shareholders.

Our next question comes from Dave Togut from Evercore ISI.

Within the Fintech segment, the 12 core wins are certainly good to see. Can you talk about decision cycles, sales cycles and how they might be evolving post the regional bank crisis from early March?

Yes. I mean, first of all, I don't -- I didn't see a regional bank crisis. I saw tremendous turmoil. I think we have banks of all sizes from the largest in the world to 13-person credit unions, and there was not across -- and this is me talking to you about my interaction with my client base. In their office, during this period of time, while I was on the road, whether it was Topeka, Kansas, we saw that Missouri -- Springfield, Missouri, Raleigh, North Carolina, all across, we have very, very sound banks across this country that really performed very, very well and have always ran their asset and liability structure in a manner that I've seen through my career. So little bit -- I'm sorry for that take off, but I wouldn't want to name it as a banking crisis. There was turmoil, I see demand very high. Every one of those were creating opportunity that I rattled off during that week. I still -- I've been consistent on demand is high, opportunity to sell all products is very high. I mean, if you step back and look at of 2, FI-facing segments, you look at it over the past 3 quarters. Third quarter at 7.7% growth, fourth quarter '22 at 9.2% growth and first quarter of 23% at 9.4% growth. Those feel good to us. Our pipeline is strong both in traditional products and then in our new opportunities like Finxact and Ondot and others. So I feel very, very good about -- yes, there was maybe, as I called it, a little coastal problem. But I felt throughout the country, it's been very, very strong. And baseline to us, we were all over, how to help them through it and deliver what they needed during that turmoil. And I feel good about how the org performed.

Appreciate that. And just as a follow-up, perhaps, Bob, can you talk about the key drivers of operational effectiveness or operational excellence that will sustain margin expansion in your midterm range.

Sure. And Dave, this is quite frankly, it's just old-fashioned productivity. This is really what has been at the core of our company for a lot of years. The last couple of years have been focused on integration and cost synergies. And so this is returning back to basics with integration synergy behind us from the large merger back in middle of '19 and getting into productivity, reevaluating how we do everything and why we do what we do. It's things like implementing our new SAP system and streamlining the process and getting more information out of the hands of our business leaders more quickly so that we can make decisions faster. And it is, like I said, evaluating what we do on a day-to-day basis and streamlining that process so we can be quicker, more nimble, satisfy our clients and serve them in the way they need to be served with greater speed and efficiency.

And for our final question, we'll go to Dave Koning from Baird.

Great job. And maybe just my 2 questions on merchant. First one, ex Clover, it seems like you still did mid- to upper teens revenue growth in Acceptance. So I guess my question really is, are you taking sure -- even without Clover, it seems like you're taking a lot of share in the industry. Is that fair to say?

Yes, David, I think we had yet another very strong merchant quarter across the board. Contributions, yes, Clover continues to do well. We continue to serve our enterprise clients and gain there. Our international business, as you heard, hitting on all cylinders. So this is -- Clover is a big part of this segment, no doubt about it, and a big part of growth. But we laid out our intent, our goal to get to $10 billion by 2025. Clearly, Clover is part of that. But our enterprise clients, our non-Clover SMB clients, our international region is all part of that. And all are contributing to the growth in first quarter, and last year for that matter.

Yes. Great. And just as a follow-up, I think there might be a little misconception on the Street, just that volume growth being mid-single digits seems to be losing momentum. But when I look at it, I think over 1/3 of your volume comes from bank JVs that generate almost no revenue. And I mean, I think those -- that all could almost go away, and you still probably would have beaten consensus this quarter. Is it fair to say is that maybe where some of the slowness is where it's the very high-yielding stuff actually is growing volume quite fast?

Yes. Overall, it's hard to be concerned in my mind with 18% top line when we did 17% for the full year last year, and to your earlier question, and taking share across the board. There's lots of different elements to that volume. It did ease a bit, and certainly the bank joint ventures are part of that. We have some processing revenue -- processing volume that doesn't drive big revenue and big profitability for us. And obviously, we continue to focus on that. And as we talked about, geez, a little more than a year ago now. And we think that, that holds going forward from a revenue standpoint but isn't a big growth driver for us.

Yes, I'd like to thank everybody for their attention today. Please feel free to reach out to our IR team with any questions. Have a great day, and I look forward to talking to you. Thank you.

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