Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (FIS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

September 9, 2025

US Financials Financial Services Company Conference Presentations 36 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

William Nance

Analysts
#1

All right. We are going to jump right in here. Next up, we are delighted to have FIS CEO, Stephanie Ferris; and CFO, James Kehoe, with us today. Stephanie took on the new role of CEO in 2022, following roles in senior leadership at FIS and Worldpay. And James has been CFO since 2023, following his position at Walgreens. Thank you both for being here. Just a matter of quick housekeeping, like Goldman did advise in the unclosed transaction with TSYS and GPN and Worldpay. And so -- and whoever else I'm forgetting. And so we are not rated on all of those entities. And so we're not going to talk about the TSYS deal today. We're going to talk about everything else that's going on at FIS, and we're really excited to do that. So thanks for being here, guys.

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#2

Yes. Thanks, Will.

William Nance

Analysts
#3

Okay. So I wanted to kick it off just a high-level strategy question. Stephanie, you've been in the role for a few years now. Just update us on what have you accomplished since then? Where do you see as the kind of the biggest change in the organization since taking over?

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#4

Yes. So it's been a great opportunity. I tell my team all the time, it's an honor and a privilege to run FIS because fundamentally, it serves financial services around the world. And I think we've all seen through whether it's the pandemic or even what's happening now, the strength of the system is working as we wanted to. So for FIS in particular, we came into -- or I came into this role and really wanted to refocus the company on what its core strength was and get back to focusing on capital allocation, return on invested capital and growing the business in what I would consider healthy ways. So focusing on financial institutions and financial services, focusing on recurring revenue, focusing on making sure we're maximizing, delivering products in the places where growth is. So think about digital payments and lending. And so over the last couple of years, we've done a lot of transformative things. The first thing we did was separate the Worldpay business, and we think that's a fantastic business and then did that in actually three steps. So first announced a spin, then a sale of 45% of it to GTCR and then most recently, the sale of the rest of rest -- the announcement of the rest of the sale to Global Payments. So I thought that was pretty important in terms of focusing our time, attention and capital. And then most recently, doing the final trade of the 45% of Worldpay and really getting an asset that not only was cash generating and really gives us the opportunity once we close the transaction to flip a noncash earnings stake into a cash earning stake. It increases our capacity very significantly to return capital to shareholders as we close that transaction. But probably most importantly and strategically, gives us a credit processing capability that FIS has, frankly, never had. So we've had credit card processing, but it's been in smaller financial institutions. We generally play in the larger financial institution market. So having that credit card capability and that product set has been very important to us, and we're very excited about that. And then I might say, finally, now thinking about what's happening broadly around the world with respect to Agentic commerce and AI, getting very excited about having debit card core banking and credit card information coming together and what we could possibly do with that for our clients.

William Nance

Analysts
#5

Yes. Sounds exciting. And just if we can maybe touch on the macro environment. FIS is mostly a recurring revenue business, but you are exposed to kind of the general sentiment at financial institutions around IT spending as well as whatever the particular flavor of investment is at the time. Have you seen any meaningful shifts in sentiment or in the focus of your FIS clients over the last 6 to 12 months?

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#6

Yes. I think it's very positive. So for financial services firms, lots of good things happening. Obviously, the yield curve not being flat is always good for financial service firms. But more importantly, the regulatory environment, in particular, in the U.S. is coming down. Bank M&A is coming back. All of those things are viewed very positively. I think everybody's jury is out on the consumer. But everything that we're seeing from a payments perspective is consistent with what like the likes of Visa and Mastercard are showing you. There's still some consumer transaction and volume growth. So TBD in terms of what happens with the consumer. But FIS isn't overly exposed to the consumer. And so I would say the broad economic environment for our end customers is actually very positive.

William Nance

Analysts
#7

Great. Let's get James in here. You talked about a number of moving pieces in the banking revenue growth guidance in the second half of the year. So you had some moving pieces in the government benefits program, an acquisition, you have several positive grow overs in the fourth quarter of this year and then also FX. So hopefully, I'm not forgetting anything there. It's a lot of things driving some swing factors. Could you just help level set on what the underlying drivers are and just what you're expecting exiting the year?

James Kehoe

Executives
#8

Yes. I'd say upfront, I'd bring people back to Investor Day. We said 3.5% to 4.5%. And our current guide for the year is 4% to 4.5%. So we're kind of pretty happy about it because we're operating at the high end of the long-term guide. And both the Investor Day and the current had about 1 point of M&A in it. So it's like-for-like, we're doing what we said we would do. So I think that's a little bit lost as we get in the cycle in the individual quarters. We had the shift of the EBT business. So a large proportion was sold in the third quarter of last year, second quarter this year. This is just noise between the quarters. We've guided now to 3%, 3.5% in banking in the third quarter. That's with the 1 point shift. So part of the 4% to 4.5%. Yes, there is some acquisition in it, but that 4% to 4.5% is remarkably consistent with the full year. So we feel good about the third quarter. What we're seeing so far in the third quarter is we got 2 months close. Banking is stronger than we anticipated. It is performing really well right now. So we're very happy and ultra confident about the 3% to 3.5%. In fact, it's probably a little on the conservative side. We get into Q4, the implied growth was 5% to 6.5% growth. It did a 2-point roll over. So again, you get this out and all the time coming back to this, this is a business that this year is growing 4%. It's 4% to 4.5% in line with the business model. And on top, the recurring will always be outpacing the adjusted growth. Let me take you back last year. We did a team last year, and this is going to a 4%. So the performance is clearly scaling up and it's accelerating. Most of this is commercial excellence. It is far higher retention, and we're in the 90s, and we weren't able to say that 18 months ago. So retention is really, really strong and the relationship of new sales contribution coming from a record year in '24 on core sales, we're seeing a higher contribution from new sales [indiscernible]. So I think we're going into next year with a position of strength. Our guide from next year will be solidly within the long-term guide that we set out for the business at Investor Day. So kind of full speed ahead on banking.

William Nance

Analysts
#9

That's great. That's great. It sounds very constructive. Maybe if we can shift to some of the go-to-market initiatives that you've had. You recently talked about reengaging the lower end of the market where you've always been a player, but obviously, historically, a bigger player at the upper end of the market. Can you talk about how that journey is going and any updates you can share?

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#10

Yes. I think -- so we generally serve banks that are $20 billion and above, but we also have a set of financial institutions that are about $1 billion to $20 billion. And so prior to coming into this role, we had, again, lost a bit of focus on the banking business. And as James mentioned, we really focused on commercial excellence, but also making sure that our product set, which had always been best-in-class was continuing to be best-in-class. And so we have doubled down on our strategic cores in the smaller end of the market, you think about Horizon and have really seen Horizon and then as you move upmarket IBS, those continue to be market share gainers. And James mentioned selling a record amount of new cores. That was a lot of our smaller cores. So really focusing again, we have a great product set and making sure that we were just reengaging on the commercial side of things, not letting people take our customers, but also selling more of them. And then as you know, it's a game of you sell the core and then you get all of the surrounds, including payments and digital. And so we're very excited about the traction we're making there. And then most recently, we acquired a couple of digital assets. So we're excited about selling those into those spaces as well.

William Nance

Analysts
#11

Great. Now you touched on the strategy of going after the core to get all the surrounds. And I know that's been a big focus about kind of moving beyond big core sales and deepening the wallet share with your clients. Could you talk about just at a high level, how is FIS' approach to the core change in the selling process?

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#12

Yes. No, I don't think it's changed. I think it's a matter of the core continues to be important, but there's only so many core opportunities in the market. We've been really focused on making sure that anything that we buy that we sell, we add on to our distribution is core agnostic. So if you think about the Dragonfly acquisition that we did or the Everlink acquisition that expanded our opportunities in Canada, we have the opportunity to sell that through our global distribution channel, and it doesn't have to be attached to our core. It is attached to our core, which creates more value, but it opens up TAM as we look at being able to sell into our competitors' core. So we think that's important for us, and you'll continue to see us strategically make sure that we have products that we built as well as bought and partnered around being core agnostic and that we're really using the competitive strength of FIS, which is scale, global distribution in a marquee client set to make sure that we're selling not only the products that we've built, but also that we bought and that we're strategically partnering with others to deliver into the base.

William Nance

Analysts
#13

And then maybe a related question is just how you price deals. It's always a competitive market in the bank tech space. I think you've talked about consistently pricing on net being relatively neutral to the overall growth rate.

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#14

Yes.

William Nance

Analysts
#15

Has there been any shifts in how you price individual products in the sales process in order to kind of incentivize the wallet share that you're seeking?

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#16

Not really. So I think from our standpoint, net price is how we price new business net of compression. And I think you've heard us talk about we think there's more opportunity there for us to be -- take a bit more share in price. And we've been more price aggressive there. I think capital markets does a better job at net pricing because of the way they deliver their SaaS solutions and banking has been a little bit slower. We're working on that. We've been putting pricing escalators and items back in contracts as inflation comes. But we're really more focused around net pricing and making sure that on a net basis, we're retaining our customers and providing fair value, adding more product set for that as well as thinking about net new pricing. But we've been more disciplined, I would say. And obviously, we're winning more market share because the sales teams are -- have a great set of products, and we give them a lot of pricing opportunity. But we haven't changed it, I wouldn't say. And it hasn't -- I know there's been a lot of noise in the marketplace, but we're not seeing. From our standpoint, it's not impacting us.

William Nance

Analysts
#17

Great. That's good to hear. Maybe let's talk a little bit about digital banking. I mean you've emphasized the need for a modern digital offering to really add value for financial institution clients. What are the core pillars of FIS' digital suite? And then where are you seeing the most success in selling these solutions?

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#18

Yes. So if you think about a financial institution, they all work with us, whether we're consumer, small business or commercial customer digitally. So their channels, they deliver to us, they sell to us and they service us through digital channels. So having robust capabilities for everybody from the small financial institution or credit union all the way up to large financial institutions is very important. And having that capability for us as consumers as well as small businesses and commercial customers is very important. They are very unique needs, though. So us as a consumer is very different what we need and need out of our mobile app from a very sophisticated commercial customer who's looking for a much more sophisticated wire and treasury business. So because we serve the landscape there, we have a set of solutions that serve both consumers and small business as well as commercial customers and has that sophistication that is needed. And digital is really becoming an ecosystem now as we think about what you need, how banks think about providers because it's not just a digital capability, but they need automated onboarding. So as we go on and we want to open up accounts, whether it's a credit card account, a debit deposit account, debit card account, et cetera, you're not going in the branch to do that as much as you were. We also -- they also need sophisticated types of fraud capabilities because there's a lot of fraud going through financial services. It starts online. And so it's an ecosystem that we are looking to build both in terms of investing and building out our own product, partnering and then ultimately buying different acquisitions as well. So it's a full suite of capabilities, it's a lot of where we see financial institutions spending a lot of their technology dollars because it's the way they ultimately get to their customers.

William Nance

Analysts
#19

Yes. I know M&A has been a core part of the capital allocation policy. Could you talk about the deals you've done over the last 12 months, Dragonfly and Everlink? And maybe you could speak to your current M&A pipeline and where you think that could materialize?

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#20

Yes. So I think we said at Investor Day, we were going to be focused on about $1 billion worth of capital every year around M&A. And we would do that in concert with share repurchase and our dividends, really being focused on capital allocation. So we're staying very true and consistent to that. We also talked about keeping that M&A in places where we thought it delivered the most growth for us. So if you think about digital payments and lending. And so we have been very true to that in terms of where we've done our acquisition. So as you mentioned, we bought Dragonfly, which gave us very clear commercial digital capabilities upmarket. That acquisition has been going very well. We bought Everlink, which is in payments, allowing us to do the payment capabilities in Canada that we didn't previously have. And then I'm very excited to announce we just recently closed an acquisition in September called Amount, and that is providing digital account openings across the Board for credit card, deposit taking and lending. And so that is going to add into our suite of products as well. So very focused on where we're doing that M&A. Again, it's typically we bring it in, put it on top of our global scale. We drive it out through incremental distribution out through our customer base. And the majority of these, we know very well because either we've already been in partnership selling them together or they're in the financial institutions that are our client set. So we're very excited about that.

William Nance

Analysts
#21

That's great. And just to bring James into that conversation around the Amount acquisition, any color on -- was this baked into the guide? Or any color on how this might impact the back half of the year?

James Kehoe

Executives
#22

It wasn't in the previous guide. It's not going to be a huge number because you got 3.5, 4 months. But I just want to be clear, it will be incremental to the current [indiscernible]. We'll guide to that when we announce soon.

William Nance

Analysts
#23

Perfect. That's helpful. Okay. So I guess beyond M&A, you've had a pretty balanced capital allocation philosophy between dividend increases, buybacks, managing leverage. Could you give us a quick reminder on these commitments and any updates as we close out 2025?

James Kehoe

Executives
#24

Yes. The total return is the target is 11% to 14%, including the 2% dividend definitely covered the M&A, it's $1 billion a year. Investor Day, we said $800 million to $1.2 billion in the first 2 years on buybacks. We're currently tracking at $1.2 billion. But in the last quarter, we've actually scaled up our repurchases. We originally had a target of $200 million repurchases in the quarter. We expect to do $300 million. Looking at it as we sit here now, probably we are raising the target from $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion. The share price is just too low. So we see it as a value. So we started buying back the stock earlier. As of the first half, we repurchased $700 million. We did $300 million in the current quarter and another $300 million to bring us probably to $1.3 billion on the year. Dividend, we increased 11% earlier this year. Dividends will grow in line with EPS, and that will be -- when the transaction closes, we will temporarily halt share repurchases. The dividend policy is unchanged. So the important point is looking at post transaction, we achieve 2.8x leverage. We will be back in the market with an ability to do double the amount of M&A and the combined M&A plus share repurchases. So we'll be significantly higher in our capability to repurchase shares.

William Nance

Analysts
#25

Great. And then just maybe you're touching on the free cash flow outlook right now. We've been talking about cash flow conversion for the last year. You've been absorbing some elevated CapEx and working capital headwinds since over the past 12 months or so. And I know that you, James, have been very focused on finding efficiencies there. So what are the biggest to do around free cash flow conversion? And just how do you think about the potential for that to improve over the next several years?

James Kehoe

Executives
#26

Yes. I think the -- we did a 77% last year, the guide for conversion. The guide for this year is 82% to 85%. Very comfortable about it. The first half of the year, we're at a 61% slight conversion. There's a natural seasonality in the business, and we explained it on the prior call. Most of your annual bonus and commissions to the sales force are all paid out in the first half, not in the second half. And this year, we have a big timing shift on cash tax payments between first half and second half. So if I don't do anything, there's an automatic improvement in first half versus second half, about close on $600 million. That being said, we -- I think there's a couple of to do, and I'll answer a different question. I think we've been communicating -- we haven't been communicating effectively enough. We're going to start focusing more on GAAP cash flow and underlying at the same time. We will finish the year with both GAAP and underlying cash flow growing 14% to 15% year-on-year, outpacing the growth in EPS. And that's really, really important for the quality of earnings because people have drawn attention to a fairly high onetime expense payment. It doesn't matter. Year-on-year, the GAAP cash flow is up 15% and the building block to get to a 90% conversion is less capital intensity. We're currently running at 9% of revenue. The target longer term is 8% for long. That would add 4 to 5 points of conversion just by itself. And this is a year that is held back by higher tax payments. That will abate next year. So we're super comfortable on the 90% next year. The TSYS business will bring in $0.5 billion next year. They will be operating at -- they're currently operating at 90% conversion. So what we have to make clear to the market is the sustainability of an 85% this year, rising to a 90% next year, which will basically is not highly dependent on working capital. You did ask how are the working capital programs going. We probably have -- we had a target this year on accounts payable $100 million. We're currently tracking over 80% of that already achieved. We will probably raise the overall target as we get into next year. This is a company of paid suppliers at 30 to 45 days. We're raising it to 90 days. Tougher with the bigger suppliers, easier with middle size. We've migrated all of our consultants with the same terms already. But some of them are in the audience, actually that's why I raise it. But we are squeezing the payables. We put in place new processes around extension of payment terms to suppliers. Finance is in the process much earlier than it was before. So we've stop any of the unnecessary cash outflows. We are going after accounts payable and optimizing that 90% next year is not reliant on improving working capital turns. It's purely on capital intensity and a change in the timing of cash payments.

William Nance

Analysts
#27

Great. That's very clear, very helpful. All right. Stephanie, I think one of the focuses at the Investor Day was around the increasing overlap between the two segments between banking and Capital Markets and the opportunity to drive cross-sell as well as wallet share expansion within the Banking segment through payments. Can you update us on some of these initiatives?

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#28

Yes. So -- and I think bringing the Issuer Business in given where it sits makes it even more opportunistic. We continue -- so I recently named Nasser Khodri, our Chief Commercial Officer, who is our -- also still runs capital markets. He's taking this in particular, to make sure we have commercial excellence from the top of the house all the way through and in particular, making sure that we are really taking advantage of the unique opportunity that we have with these clients. So we sit in the very large financial institution and financial services stack, and we have very material relationships across both banking and capital markets. And then when you think about bringing the Issuer Payments Business in, it solidifies it. So we're very excited about it. And we are -- we have been, I would say, moderately successful. And the reason why I say that is I think bringing this here in and then as he and his team really focus on those clients in particular with a new growth model and a growth mindset, we should start to see even more uptake of that as we go into '26 and '27. But I think we've done a good job. Well, I'm pretty tough on us. I think we could always do better. I think we could move faster. I think we could sell more. I think we could develop more. So high sense of urgency. So I still think there's more juice to squeeze here as we think about being a very important partner to a lot of these financial institutions. And given the regulatory backdrop, they are typically looking to see less vendors in their ecosystem. And a lot of the reasons why M&A folks come to us as well is because we have these relationships, it's easier for us to cross-sell than it is for brand-new outside fintech providers to come in. So with all of that being said, I think we're doing pretty good, but I'm a tough grader, and I think there's still a lot of juice to squeeze here.

William Nance

Analysts
#29

That's great. No tougher audience than the one.

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#30

Yes. No, I know. Tell me about it.

William Nance

Analysts
#31

Okay. So it's a good pivot to the capital markets side. It's remained very strong this year. Maybe just where are you seeing the momentum in the business?

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#32

Yes. So it has. I think the good news is, I think James and I talked a little bit about on the second quarter that we saw some slowdown in the loan syndication parts of our business. We're happy to report that, that is back on track as we looked at closing July and August. So that little bit of blip on whatever happened there with the tariffs, et cetera, is back and is normalized. So we don't expect to see that. And we're feeling really good about where capital markets is going to end Q3 and Q4. I think the business, look, it continues to take share. It continues to have a lot of nice growth. We continue to push it to sell more recurring and less license, and it continues to take a lot of share. There's a lot of opportunity. On the trading and asset services front, whether it's front, middle or back office, they continue to sell a lot of their SaaS-enabled solutions. Lending continues to be a very high-growth area for us, given everybody's interest in doing private credit lending and that expanding outside the traditional financial institutions. So we see a lot of growth there. And then our treasury business, which is also included there in the office of the CFO, has a nice growth market associated with it. So we're seeing demand across the universe there, and we continue to focus the team and focus capital to make sure we're driving the outsized returns.

William Nance

Analysts
#33

And just switching gears to numbers, James, I know there was a range of outcomes in the near term in capital markets based on the volatility of some of the syndication volumes. It sounds like those have been going well. Could you just remind us of your thinking on kind of the range of outcomes and what will put you at the higher or the lower end of the capital markets range?

James Kehoe

Executives
#34

Yes. I think in Q3, we said 5.5% to 6.5% and the 5.5% basically assumes no recovery in the lending. And as a reminder, this is a business that in Q1 was up maybe 15%. Q2 was down 35%. The first 2 months of the third quarter is up 25%. So it did pull down our Q1 -- Q2 result by 100 basis points. That's why we have the wide range in Q3. So we're feeling pretty good about being solidly within the range in Q3 on capital markets same on the full year. This is a business that consistently over a multiyear period does a 6 or a 7. You can have slight moves up or down. We're not that exposed to economics. It was a small movement on a small business in the portfolio, $6 million on a $3 billion business. So it wasn't a major thing. And looking forward, as Stephanie said, all the businesses are in great shape. We've invested heavily in the past to get them on cloud, SaaS-enabled. We're in a strong product position entering into next year.

William Nance

Analysts
#35

Very good. Okay. Well, one topic that's been highly topical over the summer has been stable coins and the regulatory clear that's emerged and a lot of banks to begin to participate in that. What are you seeing from FIS clients in terms of willingness or interest in adopting the technology? What are their concerns around it? And then what roles can FIS play to support it?

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#36

Yes. I think they are all very interested in adopting it. I think TBD in terms of where and what use case it takes on in the market. But I think every financial institution is very keen to make sure they have it in their capability set. So the way we deliver it is through a product we call Money Movement Hub. And in that Money Movement Hub, you have -- so it's a piece of software, you have the ability to provide real-time payments, ACH, wire and then digital currencies. So we partnered with Circle who will be integrated into our Money Movement Hub such that financial institutions that buy our Money Movement Hub, then have the ability to offer out digital currency out to their customers. I'm hearing from most of them, again, they want to have it in their tool set in terms of capabilities, TBD in terms of where the use cases are for it as they see their commercial customers come in and utilize it. So it's a great thing for us. Again, it validates the Money Movement Hub and ultimately more sales of that, which helps our payments business in the banking space. TBD in terms of uptake.

William Nance

Analysts
#37

Right. So I guess sort of if you build it, it will come on the stablecoin side. Anything on the blockchain side, maybe particularly around the capital markets business, you're seeing opportunities to engage in things like tokenized assets?

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#38

Yes. I think -- so that's kind of also gone in and out, tokenized assets. And we've been, again, there working with partners because, as you know, you have to invest quite a bit in terms of new technologies. I do think tokenized deposits and tokenized assets have high demand, especially in terms of going across from bank to bank. Those are -- we'll enable those through a partnership as well. Let's see how much activity gets going. Our job is the ultimate financial technology provider is to make it available and then as fast as possible, make sure that we can get it out to our banks so they can be as innovative as they want to be TBD on where it ends up.

William Nance

Analysts
#39

Fair enough.

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#40

But I will say broadly, again, just going back to question one is I think all of this is good for financial services. I think putting these capabilities inside the financial services realm where they can be regulated and not outside the regulatory system is a good thing broadly for the financial services industry and gives them an opportunity to also take advantage of some of the innovations either with a disruptor or without a disruptor, but I think it's good for the overall industry.

William Nance

Analysts
#41

Great. And it wouldn't be that conflict without asking about your latest thoughts on AI. I was to hear some of them earlier, and it sounds like the industry is moving. So I'll turn the floor over to you. What do you think is the most exciting thing banks are doing with AI and what FIS has rolled out to facilitate it?

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#42

Yes. First of all, I will say that I've been in and around fintech now for over 20 years. This is the fastest I've ever seen financial service firms adopt a technology ever. Now when you talk to the likes of probably [indiscernible] or something like that from the hyperscalers, they would say, yes, but they're still slow. Yes, but they're fast for them. And so it's really significant because it's opening up an opportunity for the financial services industry to materially move their cost structure, which really there hasn't been a big enough technology to allow them to do that. So when you think about banks in particular, and how do they drive more -- their efficiency ratios, which are really important to their returns, on capital, they are adopting it at a very serious pace. Now they're focused where it makes a lot of sense for them, not just, yes, in developing faster and higher levels of productivity, but also around big places in their back offices where they have a material amount of cost, but also a material amount of -- where they've already had machine learning. So I'll give an example. So yes, they're looking at taking out -- they're having a better contact center experience just like we all are in taking out costs there. But for a lot of financial institutions looking at fraud, fraud is a very big cost inside a bank. It costs them a ton of money. It's -- they've already had machine learning stacked against those fraud capabilities. And so now thinking about AI and creating digital agents that can ultimately make decisions. I think, is very interesting for banks. So I think there's a lot of unique opportunity there. We, as FIS, again, our job is to lean in and make sure that where we provide the fraud models, our fraud models are also AI-enabled and have those best-in-class capabilities. And then what we're spending time on is how are we thinking about expanding the TAM. The other place that we've been leaning in very heavily across AI, and we just, I think, announced it today is around a lot of our capital markets products to fundamentally provide workflow and models, modeling, whether it's risk or climate or treasury and creating AI-enabled capabilities off of those products to make ultimately banks and capital markets firms processes faster, more efficient and better outcomes, whether you're going to underwrite something faster, have less risk, et cetera. So I think it's a very exciting time. Again, like I said, typically, when technology comes out, you see a lot of the banks, in particular, are fast followers. They're generally leading in this case, which is exciting for us.

William Nance

Analysts
#43

That's great. In the last 20 seconds here, James, I wanted to squeeze one more in just on efficiency and cost actions. I know margins in the back half of the year were a big focus around earnings. There are some FX distortions on the guidance. Maybe you could just talk around your expectations for the back half of the year and any cost actions you've got planned?

James Kehoe

Executives
#44

Well, we think we're plan on what we said at the beginning of the year. We said 40 to 45 and we've had an adverse currency impact, which has led to the revised guidance of 20 basis points. I think what's lost on some of the participants is within this number, we're offsetting the TSA impacts of Worldpay, and that's about 60 to 70 bps on the full year. So that's 70 on a constant currency basis, 40 add back 60 bps of offset of TSA. We're tracking the cost reduction programs are driving 100 basis points of, call it, core normalized margin growth. And looking forward to next year, we will do at least 60 bps of margin improvement next year. Why? Stephanie has been driving what we call organizational health program, which essentially is delayering. Finance has gone from 10 to 7 functions by taking out -- and we're not focused on lower level employees. It's director plus. This has gone in successive waves and the biggest waves are in September, October, and November. It gives us a huge cost reduction tailwind going into next year. So we're ultra confident on the margin guide for next year.

William Nance

Analysts
#45

Sounds good. Confident on a lot of things. Thank you guys for spending the time. I really appreciate it.

Stephanie Ferris

Executives
#46

Thanks Will.

James Kehoe

Executives
#47

Thanks Will.

This call discussed

For developers and AI pipelines

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