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Fiserv’s chief executive early Tuesday told Wall Street not to look for immediate improvement following a sub-par year in 2025. “Our headline results are below our expectations and will remain that way until mid-year,” chief executive Michael Lyons told equity analysts at the top of a group call with equity analysts to present Fiserv’s fourth-quarter results.
But though Lyons was blunt in his assessment of a year that saw the massive processor’s stock price plummet from $230 to the current $60 per share, he outlined steps he says will effect a turnaround. These include new capabilities for Clover, Fiserv’s bedrock point-of-sale technology, which continues to find new clients, though at a slower pace. Here, the company is stressing help with merchant setup and simplified billing statements, he said, as Fiserv seeks out new sellers.
Clover aside, the multidimensional company is searching for revenue opportunities in new services related to card issuing and agentic commerce, not to mention stablecoins, added Lyons, who took over last year from long-time CEO Frank Bisignano when the latter left to run the Social Security Administration in the new Trump administration. “We see agentic fundamentally changing the consumer landscape,” Lyons told analysts on the call.
But though it has long been a star in Fiserv’s universe, Clover itself may need a boost. “Clover growth was below our expectations,” noted chief financial officer Paul Todd, particularly in the latter part of the year when “softness” set in in the hotly competitive restaurant business, a prime Clover market. The technology generated $3.3 billion in revenue for the year, up 23%, though that growth rate slowed to 12% in the December quarter. Processing volume from Clover devices rose 9% in the quarter, but Fiserv is looking for an improvement to 10% to 15% this year.
Fiserv’s financial-solutions business overall similarly saw slowness, with revenue in the quarter dropping 2%, to $2.36 billion. The unit’s key digital payment and card issuing segments similarly receded slightly, each posting 1% declines in both adjusted and organic revenue for the quarter. “We’re still facing comparative headwinds in banks,” Todd said. “This is a significant area of focus for us,” Lyons added. “We’re not happy with where we are, and we’re working to fix it.”
The final score for the quarter showed Fiserv as a whole recording $19.8 billion in adjusted revenue, a 4% improvement from the same quarter in 2024. But the company’s profitability took a hit, with its adjusted operating margin sliding 200 basis points to 37.4%. That sent earnings per share down 2%, to $8.64.
