Fiserv, Inc. (NYSE:FI) UBS Global Technology and AI Conference December 4, 2024 4:15 AM ET

Company Participants

Bob Hau - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Tim Chiodo - UBS

Tim Chiodo

All right. Great. We're going to get started. My name is Tim Chiodo. I'm the lead payments processors and fintech analyst here at UBS. I want to start by saying thank you to the Fiserv team. With us here on stage, we have Bob Hau, who is the CFO. Also joining us here is Julie Chariell from the SVP or Head of Investor Relations. So both to Julie and Bob, we really appreciate you being here today in Arizona.

Bob Hau

Great. Thank you for having us.

Question-and-Answer Session

Q - Tim Chiodo

All right. We've got a great list of topics here. Just to give a rundown of what we're going to try and cover. We're going to first just touch on a little bit of macro and kind of what Bob and Fiserv, what they're seeing in the business. Then we're going to get into some topics around the Merchant Solutions segment.

A lot of it will be focused on Clover and vertical SaaS and some of the new products that have been rolled out. We'll talk a little bit about Merchant Cash Advance, and we'll touch on the Clover $4.5 billion target. Then we'll switch briefly into the Financial Solutions segment and a lot of the accelerants that are there to drive the business in '25 and '26. We'll touch on margins and then, time permitting, we'll get to Argentina.

Tim Chiodo

So with that, Bob, why don't we open it up with just a comment that -- coming out of last earnings, Visa, Mastercard, Fiserv, Global Payments, Square, all essentially said that October was a really strong month, and we've gotten some further updates here at the conference. Maybe you could start with what Fiserv is seeing.

Bob Hau

Yes. So when we released our third quarter earnings at the end of October, we indicated that we did see an uptick in October activity relative to what we saw in the third quarter. And then we launched or announced the October results for the Fiserv Small Business Index on the 2nd of November with very strong overall small business. Now that's small business in the U.S., and it's not our numbers. It's our projection of the overall market.

But obviously, we follow that to some extent. And that was up 7%, very strong month of October. Then a couple of days ago, we released the November Small Business Index, and we saw it slow. to about 5%, 4.8%. So still very strong, not quite as strong as we saw in October. And I would tell you, we're still seeing that same sort of a thing. November was a good month.

It wasn't as robust as October was. And obviously, we just finished the Thanksgiving holiday week. It's no longer Black Friday. It's now sales on Thursday, Black Friday, small business Saturday and obviously, Cyber Monday, and we saw very good results there. Now that's four days. And again, U.S. only, but we saw good results.

And we actually measure the overall economy or overall business volume two different ways. We have a program we call spend trends, which generally is focused on same-store sales type of activity, both enterprise and small businesses. And for that Thanksgiving holiday period, that kind of six-day period, we saw overall sales up about 6%, just under 6% from a same-store sales standpoint.

Then if you peel it back into small business, that's a Fiserv Small Business Index measure, again, we're measuring millions of different transactions, a couple of million different small businesses. We saw actually almost 12% growth year-over-year for that same holiday time period, 11.9% through the Fiserv Small Business Index. Four days good result, some of that actually is December, December 1. But we continue to see a good consumer and an overall good market.

Tim Chiodo

All right. Thank you, Bob. That's a great update. We're going to move on to some of the Clover vertical SaaS investments. So we were in Las Vegas together not too long ago, and I think was one of the highlights of the day, we got to see some of the new software that you're offering to small businesses. You already had plenty in restaurants, but that's been bolstered, but some of the newer additions were more for the retail vertical and for professional services. We tend to think of professional services, potentially businesses that have appointment booking, and that's one of the key areas of functionality.

So given this is an important topic with competition relative to Square and Toast and Shopify, maybe you could just give us a little bit more on what this vertical SaaS build-out is and how Clover will monetize it?

Bob Hau

Yes. So we continue to focus on developing new operating capabilities. Clover is our operating system for small businesses. It's obviously a payment terminal capability, but it's also a much wider set of software solutions for small businesses. And we continue to develop new capability, further integrate new capability, make it easier to consume, easier to operate.

And so some of what you saw at Fiserv Forum in Las Vegas a couple of months ago now, I guess, was some of the capabilities we're building out in the three focused verticals: restaurant, retail and services. And in the last, call it, 30, 60 days. We've launched a number of new services, and we will continue to see more coming out and more enhancements.

And it's things around for services, as you talked about, appointment booking. It's scheduling for employees. It's website capability for retailers. It's menu capability, AI-assisted menu capability and online booking capabilities for restaurants. And so a variety of different solutions launched in the last 30 or 60 days, more coming out this quarter, first half of next year, second half of next year, it's a continuous investment.

You also heard us announce over the last several months, new hardware capability. Beginning of the year, we launched a larger form factor for our kitchen display system, which is both back office -- front of restaurant, back of restaurant capabilities. Earlier this year, we launched a new -- what we refer to as a Flex pocket, a very small form factor handheld device, largely for restaurants and retail -- but retailers, but can be used more broadly than that.

We have a Flex device that has a printer on it. This is actually a smaller form factor that fits nicely in an apron for a wait staff and is easier for them to use both in terms of menu management, order taking, but also payment taking table side.

We launched a new Clover Compact, a very small form factor typically for smaller, small businesses in a space that we haven't typically participated in, so expanding our TAM capability. And finally, we launched a Clover kiosk, typically for QSRs to allow consumers to walk into a quick service restaurant and order directly from a kiosk, improving speed of service, reducing labor costs for a restaurant.

Tim Chiodo

Excellent. Thank you, Bob. We're going to move on to non-Clover SMB. So in the model, it's roughly $3.7 billion or so of revenue last year. We understand about 2/3 of that or so is in the U.S. We generally think about that as a fast-growing international business with roughly 1/3 of it. And then a slower growth or possibly even ex growth U.S. non-Clover SMB. But that's okay, right? There is a plan to address that via back book conversion. That's more of a 2026 event. Can you just talk to us a little bit about what is the makeup of the U.S. non-Clover SMB business?

Bob Hau

Yes. So this is a great business for us. As you say, it's about $3.7 billion out of our almost, call it, $5.8 billion of revenue, almost $6 billion of small business overall revenue. Clover obviously growing very rapidly.

We expect that non-Clover business to generally grow mid-single digits globally. And we continue to sell it. We continue to see growth in existing clients using -- as our small businesses grow, so does our revenue, and we continue to sell it. Obviously, we believe Clover is a great solution, but it isn't necessarily the solution for all small businesses.

Not every small business needs to have a full-blown operating system. Some just like running their small business. The example I love to give is I'm running a pizzeria because I love making pies. I got five tabletops. I don't need a fancy full-blown operating system. Having a terminal on my counter is more than fine, and we're happy to sell that service to those clients.

Tim Chiodo

Excellent. Thank you, Bob. All right. We're going to move to the Clover $4.5 billion target by 2026. A question that we often get from investors is the CAGR implied to get there is sort of in the high 20s or so on the revenue growth. And you've had a large gap between the volume growth and the revenue growth because of the strength of the value-added services. So the question we often get is, implied in reaching that target, from here, call it, the mid-teens volume growth for Clover, is there an expectation of a mild acceleration in the volume growth to help support that target?

Bob Hau

Yes. So there's a number of drivers that get us from the roughly just over $2 billion last year to $4.5 billion. If you do the math, that requires about a 28% CAGR. It doesn't mean we're going to grow at 28% every day, every month, every quarter, every year. But broadly, we're looking at a 28% growth to get there.

By the way, first half -- excuse me, first nine months of the year, we're at about a 28% growth. And that's a combination of continued volume, most definitely, not a massive change in volume. We're not counting on a big improvement in the macro economy to get us there, but the economy continues to operate kind of where it is right now. We'll get a lift in volume as we expand internationally.

So that's part of the growth algorithm is additional volume as we expand internationally, but also selling more value-added services internationally. As you know, back in November of last year, when we had our last big Investor Day, we talked about expanding internationally into Brazil, Mexico, Singapore, Australia. And I'm happy to say we're delivering on that.

In fact, Frank is not here today because he's down in Brazil officially launching Clover for the Brazil market. We've been in market in a kind of a pilot friends and family getting that ramped up. But today, he's throwing -- he gets to go to a party in Brazil. I'm here with all of you, but we're officially launching Clover in Brazil on a kind of a full-scale capability, and we'll follow that with Australia and Mexico and Singapore. So international growth is absolutely part of it.

The value-added services, the new capabilities that I talked about in the first question, we continue to invest in bringing new capabilities, but also see further penetration of the existing capability. Part of the growth algorithm to get to that $4.5 billion is to see our value-added service penetration to go from 19% to 20%, 21%. By 2026, we'll be a 27% value-added service.

So you'll actually see that spread between volume and revenue growth continue to widen as we see that value-added service penetration continue to grow. And so that's bringing new capabilities not only to those three verticals that I talked about, restaurant, retail and services, but also horizontal capability.

A couple of weeks ago, we announced a new partnership with ADP to bring their payroll capability to our small business clients. Interestingly enough, that joint venture -- excuse me, not joint venture, that partnership is a combination of us selling their payroll system.

We're referring our clients to them for small business clients for payroll, but they're referring their payroll clients to us for CashFlow Central, another value-added service that we're bringing to small businesses, not only directly through our own Clover integration that will happen late next year, but through our own bank channel and now through ADP through our partnership with ADP, part of the growth algorithm.

Tim Chiodo

Excellent. Thank you, Bob. Last one on the merchant segment before we bridge the gap to Financial Solutions by talking about the small business bundle. Let's just talk a little bit about merchant cash advance broadly speaking. So I believe it was roughly midway through Q2 that the company made a decision to lean in a little bit further to merchant cash advance, whether that be anticipation in Argentina or just the Clover Capital business in general. Can you just talk a little bit about the opportunity you saw or what was the catalyst to make that decision to lean in a little bit harder?

Bob Hau

Yes. So those two programs are similar but a little bit different. Merchant Cash Advance, largely in Latin America, very largely in Argentina, is a program that we see very healthy business where you have extended settlement period for the merchants. In Argentina, it's T plus 18 to 30 days. And in fact, in many cases, they have an extended payment, kind of a pay in four type program where you can pay over an extended period of time.

And so the period that the merchant has from actual sales transaction to seeing the cash is quite lengthy, much, much longer than you would see here in the U.S. And so there's a big demand for finding a way to accelerate that cash flow into that merchant. And therefore, we brought to market the anticipation program.

It's an extremely low risk. I don't believe in no risk, but it's an extremely low-risk program because we are in the payment flow. So we know the merchant has payment coming from the issuer, from the brands for a volume that they transacted today. And we can anticipate that because we're in the payment flow when that cash does come at T plus 18 or T plus 30.

That comes through us to go to the merchant. If we've advanced it, if we've anticipated that, the cash stops with us. And so it's very low risk. We're not taking risk with thousands of small businesses. We're taking risk with a small handful of actual very large issuers or the large brands.

So it's a great program. We get a very nice spread. As you might suspect, I can borrow much cheaper in Argentina than a small business can. So we get a great spread on that volume or excuse me on that interest rate as well as use some of our own cash flow that we have down in Argentina to reinvest back into the business. And it's been a great program for us.

Tim Chiodo

Excellent. All right. Thank you. Bob, let's move on to the bridge between the two big segments. Let's talk about the SMB bundle, which was another one of the highlights of the time that we spent together at Fiserv Forum in Las Vegas. So maybe just talk about, sure, the offering, but I think the audience would also love to hear around what this means in terms of potential monetization and some of the addressable market associated with the SMB bundle.

Bob Hau

Yes. This is something that we talked much more regularly about really starting in the third quarter. This is a suite of products, an integrated suite of products that we're bringing to market for small businesses. And we think we're in a unique position to be able to do that because of our merchant acquiring capability, our Merchant Solutions segment as well as our Financial Solutions segment. And we can bring it direct to small businesses, but we can also bring it through financial institutions.

So an example of that is our new CashFlow Central program, an AR/AP solution that we are selling today through our financial institutions, but also will be integrated into the Clover solution, the Clover dashboard, whereby a merchant can handle receivables and payables in a very seamless manner.

Selling that -- offering that to our financial institutions, who then generate revenue with one of -- some of their most important clients, those small businesses. It's a revenue generator for the Financial Solutions -- excuse me, for the financial institution. It's a great solution to allow a small business to more easily operate their business.

Managing cash flow is the lifeblood of a small business, as you all know, and having an ease of doing that, putting less demand on those small businesses so they can spend less time worrying about getting paid or making payments and more time running their business is a great combination.

And so we're selling that through our financial institutions that's integrated with our banking software, digital banking solution called Experience Digital, which we typically abbreviate as XD. CashFlow Central integrated with XD, providing that to our small businesses, add into that things like the ADP payroll capability and all of that vertical software that we're bringing to market provides a very significant multiproduct integrated solution to help small businesses run their business.

And again, because of our combination, both in terms of our distribution reach being what we refer to as our, we think, a partner of choice for financial institutions, having that large distribution channel and that capability of digital banking, combined with payments capability, combined with merchant acquiring capability is unique in the market.

Tim Chiodo

Right. Excellent. Thank you, Bob. Let's move on to the revenue guide for 2025 and 2026, which calls for an acceleration in the Financial Solutions segment. So Currently, revenue growth is kind of in the 6%-ish range when you were making the point that you're already there for the 6% to 8% guidance, you're at the low end of that. But there's just a number of new business coming in, large new wins. We can list them off with Target, Desjardins, CashFlow Central, DoorDash, STAR and Accel maybe doing better. It starts to become a pretty long list. Maybe you could just highlight a few of those and if possible, provide any relative or absolute sizing of some of those benefits.

Bob Hau

Yes. And be honest, to your list, I would add CashFlow Central, I would add the ADP solution that we're now bringing the overall integrated suite for small businesses. There's a number of different things, Finxact, a number of different things that gives us confidence of this year, our outlook for 2024 was 5% to 7% organic growth for that Financial Solutions segment. Our medium-term guidance that we provided back in November of last year at our last Investor Day, was for that Financial Solutions business to accelerate to 6% to 8%.

First nine months of the year of this year, we're actually at 6%. So we're right at the midpoint of this year's guidance range of 5% to 7%, and we are currently at the bottom end of the medium-term guide that we gave for 2025 and '26. I'm not prepared to give you a new outlook for '25, but we feel very good about, a, where we are and also in the growth that we see on that long list of things that we believe will bring growth into next year and beyond.

One of the beauties of Fiserv is we aren't counting on a home run. We don't need product A, boy, if that thing doesn't work, we're going to have a problem or if that thing does work, we're going to grow like crazy. There's lots of different tools. We just went through a long list of growth items that help us propel into that 6% to 8% next year, and we feel confident on every one of them.

Some will go a little bit slower, some will go a little bit faster, but we feel very good about bringing all of that into market. And a lot of that is already here. We're not counting on new activity. CashFlow Central is in production. We're not yet in revenue generation.

We're waiting for some of those banks that we've announced, and we've got more announcements coming. new clients signing up on a regular basis. We expect the first client to go live in production, revenue generating probably second quarter of next year, and we'll see that ramp.

Some of the financial institutions we've already signed up are quite large. And so we'll see some good ramp of those, and we have lots more in the pipeline. Things like the ADP program, we're already seeing referrals. We announced that within the first week, we had three Clover clients sign up through referrals that we had received from ADP.

Now that's three out of millions, but that's immediate benefit. Target is a client that's already signed. Desjardins is signed. It's a matter of when they're ready to go live as they get their implementation program done, we'll go live with that and gives us all some great visibility into that growth and confidence in being able to deliver on those commitments.

Tim Chiodo

Excellent. All right, Bob. Well, let's touch briefly, if you don't mind. I think we have time to fit in this and a little bit on margins. So let's touch on STAR and Accel. So STAR and Accel, somewhat like CashFlow Central and the small business bundle, it's a product that, in some ways, goes across the two ecosystems. So STAR and Accel are -- they sit within Financial Solutions, but they can be bundled with the merchant acquiring offering. So maybe you could just talk a little bit about how that helps you win on the merchant side at times. You've announced a few partnerships and also the growth rates of STAR and Accel and how they've changed over the past few years.

Bob Hau

Yes. It's actually really gets back to the power of the combination five years ago of Fiserv and First Data. We fundamentally believed in the opportunity to have a significant merchant solutions business and a significant Financial Solutions business. Both of us served similar clients in different ways and bringing that overall capability to market allows us to do things like that small business integrated solution set as well as bringing things like a debit network capability or Financial Solutions, the DoorDash announcement that we made a couple of weeks ago.

In market, live, we're ramping. Dashers are signing up on a regular basis. That is revenue generating already. So we've got different products that have different revenue-generating speed and having the power of that combined capability, had we not had a merchant solutions capability and the Financial Solutions capability and being able to offer that wide suite of solutions to our client base really is a powerful combination, and we think unique in the market.

Tim Chiodo

All right. Excellent. I think we can wrap with some comments on margin expansion. So at the Investor Day, you gave guidance calling for roughly, well, greater than 300 basis points of adjusted operating margin expansion across '24 to '26. The intention there was to reach roughly 40% by 2026. But it looks like you're tracking ahead of that target and recently raised your guidance for this year's margin. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about what's happening there, what's delivering the upside and how we should think about the margins over the next few years?

Bob Hau

Yes. This really is kind of the fundamental aspect of who Fiserv is. We are deeply focused on productivity, cost management, growing the business. And I talked about it at the November Investor Day, and I talk about it regularly, the virtuous cycle of growth at Fiserv.

We continue to invest for growth. We've seen a pretty significant acceleration of organic revenue growth in the company over the last several years. That incremental organic revenue comes through at very good margin, better than company average in general. Most of our products are better than company average, not all of them, otherwise, you don't have an average.

But an incremental transaction, whether it's a new account signed up at a financial institution or a debit card swipe or a credit swipe at a merchant brings incremental margin, incremental dollar of profit at better than company average.

We let some of that drop to the bottom line, and we reinvest a good portion of that back into the company to provide more incremental growth. And it's a virtuous cycle of growth allows you to invest while still expanding margins. Since we merged, we've expanded operating margins 950 basis points.

As you said back in November of last year, we guided to at least 100 basis points a year for '24, '25 and '26. Then when we officially announced our outlook for 2024, we said we'd be at 100 basis points -- at least 100 basis points for this year. We've revised that twice. During third quarter earnings, we took it up to at least 150 basis points, which means we expect to close this year out at just above 39%.

Again, not ready to give guidance for 2025, but margin expansion is the hallmark of this business. We're continuously focused on reinvesting back into the company. And we think the investment level that we are at right now allows us to continue to have very strong top line growth, that 9% to 12% organic growth that we talked about back at Investor Day for the next several years. That investment cycle allows us to continue that top line growth. That virtuous cycle allows us to continue to manage margin expansion on a regular basis.

Tim Chiodo

All right. Bob, thank you. To Bob, to Julie and to the Fiserv team, thank you for joining us here in Arizona. On behalf of everyone here at UBS, we're really glad that you came.

Bob Hau

Great. Thanks, Tim. Appreciate it.