Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ:FISV) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Frank Bisignano: Let me take the first part. First of all, on all the indicators that we talked about in March relative to our merchant business, we see that as visibly as we saw it back in March, the opportunity. I do think, this is about an operating system. It’s about platforms. And with that software capability that we bring, obviously, value-added services changes, our growth rate. As I said on this call, I think that we’ve made a big point of getting off of yield. And as I hope you could see we did get off of it, because we were going a different direction. We just think that ultimately, we’re going to bring more product in and the mix of our business is different. I think when you take a look at this business, when you’re running it the way we do, when you’re bringing more stickiness, more clients, limiting attrition through those value-added services, you also have pricing opportunity and we definitely have value-based pricing that is not having any effect on our attrition rate, because we’re really delivering multiple products into the clients.

That’s why we think a lot about ARPU and LTV around these. So it will be continue to invest in value-added services. We love distribution partners. We love them. We love direct sales. And our distribution partners, I think we have the largest sales force of agents out there. I think our retail ISO business, you remember, when we say ISO in that dimension, I’m really talking about retail ISO way more than wholesale, which we really highlighted more in the processing space. So vision to invest in software, continue to drive software sales, continue to grow distribution, continue to grow our own direct distribution and obviously, drive to $10 billion, which is clearly in sight and the other indicators we talked about.

Bob Hau: And Darrin, in terms of the 2023 outlook by segment, you heard the full year we expect to be kind of in the 7% to 9% range. The baseline does assume a mild consumer recession, which obviously will impact our Merchant segment more than our Payments and Fintech that tend to be more high recurring revenue. I would say that our Merchant business will probably be at the top end, maybe above the top end of our 9% to 12% medium-term guidance. In our Fintech space, we did 5% in 2022. I’d expect that to continue to be in our range of 4% to 6% that we provided for medium-term guidance. And in the payment space, which was 9% in 2022, actually above our guidance range. I think we’ll be at the top half of our medium-term range of the 5% to 8% as we exit 2023.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Bryan Keane from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Bryan Keane: Hi, guys, good morning, and congrats on the solid results here. Frank, I just want to ask you about the mild recession that you’re expecting. Are you seeing any signs of that today, or are you just reading the tea leaves? And maybe you can talk about the timing of the potential recession as you see it?

Frank Bisignano: Well, first of all, I’m not calling for a mild recession. That’s in our baseline, right? I thought I’d be very clear on that. And I mean there are plenty of people, including Bob that would say statistically, we already have seen our recession given the contraction in GDP we saw last year. But I would treat it like we built that into our baseline. And to the extent that doesn’t happen, we have expectations on the high end at minimum is how I would think about that. I mean, I think we’re not right now feeling that element. So it was not a forecast that recession as much as a planning baseline to consider all scenarios.