Core provider FIS offered a look behind the crypto curtain during its first-quarter earnings presentation Tuesday.

Circle, the peer-to-peer payments company and issuer of USDC stablecoin, announced in April that it had selected FIS’ Worldpay platform for streamlined merchant acceptance of USDC, with crypto.com set to be the pilot customer. FIS President Stephanie Ferris said during the call that digital assets represent a “very exciting” vertical for the company.

“We processed for the top four out of five largest crypto exchanges,” Ferris said. “They come to us because of the level of authorizations and fraud rates that we can provide for them in terms of being benefits, but also because we’re a large-scale provider for them.” Ferris did not name the specific exchanges during the call.

Bolstering its crypto drive, FIS in April selected digital asset custodian Fireblocks to facilitate movement and storage of digital assets — along with access to digital DeFi wallets — for its capital markets clients. Fireblocks’ web client offers a representational state transfer (REST) API for automated transaction management and anti-money laundering (AML)/know-your-transaction (KYT) integrations for data security.

FIS also turned its digital focus inward during the presentation, noting the core has shifted its technology and application architecture to the cloud in Q1 and enabled public cloud deployments on Microsoft Azure, Chief Executive Gary Norcross said. In addition, FIS highlighted the forthcoming expansion of its merchant business, announcing a plan to expand to 15 new countries by the end of 2023, after the addition of seven new countries in 2021.

Combined revenues for Q1 reached $3.5 billion, a 9% increase YoY, driven by a 7% YoY increase in banking revenues to $1.65 billion. Merchant revenue grew to $1.1 billion, a 15% increase YoY, and capital markets revenue reached $658 million, a 6% increase YoY.

Wins and acquisitions

FIS touted its February acquisition of embedded payments player Payrix during the earnings presentation, pointing to a doubled YoY client count and the signing of several software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms in Q1.

“Payrix is enabling us to embed payments and access SMBs and card-not-present,” Ferris said. “Our software-led SMB strategy today has been card-present. And so Payrix really opens up the card-not-present piece, and we are booking that into the e-commerce segment to keep it pure.”

FIS added an unnamed top 20 U.S. financial institution to its roster of bank clients during Q1, along with crypto exchange currency.com, mutual company Mutual of America and telecommunications provider AT&T.

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