Global Payments, FIS and Fiserv saw gains in the first quarter, driven by strategic acquisitions and expanded payments solutions.

Tech provider Q1 earnings

Global Payments expands with Worldpay

Payments solutions provider Global Payments today posted $2.2 billion in adjusted net revenues, up 1% from Q1 2024.

Global Payments reported:

• $1.7 billion in Merchant Solutions revenues, up 1% year over year; and
• $529 million in Issuer Solutions revenues, up 3% YoY.

Global Payments on April 17 announced it would acquire payment processing firm Worldpay for $24.5 billion in a deal partly financed by Global Payments selling its Issuer Solutions business to core provider FIS for $13.5 billion. The acquisition is expected to close in mid-2026.

Global Payments projects Worldpay will process $2.5 trillion worth of payments transactions annually, including 55 billion individual e-commerce, enterprise and SMB transactions, according to its earnings presentation.

“We see a significant opportunity with the e-commerce and enterprise capabilities that Worldpay brings. We can extend these capabilities on an omnichannel basis to the nearly 40 markets where Global Payments has a strong physical presence and Worldpay is primarily virtual,” Chief Executive Bob Cortopassi said today during the company’s earnings call.

Global Payments’ post-acquisition investment goals include:

• Expanding Worldpay’s reach through Global Payments’ network;
• Cross-selling and tapping new customer segments;
• Providing integrated POS, ecommerce and embedded finance solutions; and
• Upgrading digital tools and services for developers and partners.

FIS rolls out payments, AI solutions

FIS today reported $2.5 billion in Q1 earnings, a 2.6% YoY increase.

Revenues included:

• $1.7 billion from Banking Solutions, up 2% YoY; and
• $764 million from Capital Market Solutions, up 9% YoY.

FIS during the quarter:

• Announced a partnership with Affirm for BNPL services;
• Onboarded an undisclosed $15 billion Midwestern FI to its Digital One banking platform;
• Received certification to enable send capabilities for credit transfers through the FedNow network;
• Rolled out a unified payments hub for FIs to integrate with payments networks;
• Launched its Securities Finance Matching platform;
• Introduced the cloud-native FIS Treasury and Risk Manager platform;
• Rolled out an AI-powered revenue insights solution; and
• Launched Treasury GPT, an AI-powered product support tool for risk management.

Fiserv onboards more FIs

Digital banking solutions provider Fiserv on April 24 announced Q1 revenues of $4.8 billion, up 5% YoY, led by growth in its Financial Solutions business segment.

Fiserv Q1 revenue breakdown

Fiserv’s Q1 wins include:

• $28.1 billion Washington Federal became the first client to go live on Fiserv’s CashFlow Central digital payments platform;
• Fifteen additional institutions signed up for CashFlow Central, including $30 billion BECU and $9.8 billion Teachers Federal Credit Union;
• $6.7 billion Republic Bank signed onto Fiserv’s DNA digital banking platform;
• Added accounts from existing client $14.4 billion Northwest Bank through Northwest’s acquisition of $2.2 billion Penns Woods; and
• $722 million Thread Bank signed on to use Fiserv subsidiary Finxact’s cloud-based core platform for embedded banking.

Embedded finance is a key area of focus for Fiserv, CEO Mike Lyons said on the company’s Q1 earnings call April 24, referring to its October 2024 deal with DoorDash to embed financial services for Dashers as a “marquee win.”

Lyons became CEO on Jan. 27 following Frank Bisignano’s departure after his nomination to lead the Social Security Administration.

Fiserv’s March acquisition of program management solutions provider Payfare, which included a white-label mobile app and a cloud-native orchestration platform, fueled a strong sales pipeline during the quarter, Lyons said during the call.

Additionally, Fiserv’s $650 million acquisition of Finxact in 2022 is paying off as Fiserv looks to expand into banking, Lyons said.

“Our embedded finance capabilities allow us to enable banking, lending and payment services and an ecommerce experience,” Lyons said. “We achieved this by combining our merchant acquiring and card issuing capabilities with bank-grade general ledger processing through Finxact.”

Fiserv is also benefiting from its peer-to-peer payments business as a Zelle enabler, Chief Financial Officer Robert Hau said during the call, adding that Fiserv’s client base constitutes two-thirds of FIs on the Zelle network.

Zelle suffered an outage last week, along with Fiserv user Citi.

Fiserv’s 2025 goals include expanding FI access to Zelle, FedNow and other payments networks and expanding its AppMarket fintech platform to help banks adopt third-party tools and speed up digital transformation, Tim Ruhe, vice president and head of payments strategy for digital payments at the company, recently told Bank Automation News.