Fiserv, Inc. (FISV) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome back to Evercore ISI's 8th Annual Payments and Fintech Innovators Forum. Delighted to kick off our fireside chat with Fiserv management. Joining us from Fiserv are Chairman, President and CEO, Frank Bisignano; Head of Investor Relations, Julie Chariell; and then a new member of the Fiserv investor team, Nicholas Fenichell. Frank, Julie, Nicholas, thanks so much for being with us here today.

Happy to be here.

I'm David Togut. I lead the payments processors and IT services research team here at Evercore ISI.

So Fiserv touches 40% of all electronic payment transactions in the U.S. Year-to-date, what's your most recent read on the pulse of consumer spending trends? And how does that shape your view of the consumer for the year ahead?

Yes. I mean we're fixing to be, call it, 1/6th of the year done. We saw some weather effects in January, saw a bounce back a bit in February. We produce the Fiserv Small Business Index, which is not an indicator of our business because we have a much different business mix in total, both geographically and client diversity. But when you look at that, you look at growth. So I think the consumer is spending. I think categorically, you'll see changes, maybe a little less discretionary and a little more nondiscretionary.

Got it. And big picture, you're transforming Fiserv from a processing company into a software company led by an operating system approach, combined with value-added solutions. What inning of this transformation is Fiserv in? And what advances in value-added solutions are in the pipeline, both in merchant and financial solutions?

Yes, I would say it's super early innings. I mean, if you go through our innovation pipeline, it's very, very robust with products that we think will have long-term delivery rates. Everybody likes to talk about Clover and Carat. Carat is a couple of years old. Clover really, 10 years ago, was a couple of engineers and a few patents. So we built horizontal capability, vertical capability. We'll continue to verticalize. I think you look across the company, an investment in Finxact, and completely moving forward with what we think is a fourth-generation loan and ledger capability and deposit capability that could be unparalleled. We always had sitting behind that DNA, and we've proven that, that has been able to go upmarket in the combo with that. And Finxact really gave us great opportunity. I think when you look at Carat, that is really, really, really just coming to market with Commerce Hub. In a way, that will continue. We were always a great e-comm processor. If you look at our ability to continue to distribute through our bank network globally, our products is very, very large. If you think at Clover going into Brazil in a way that we haven't yet outside the U.S., in a way in the ISV market, in a way continuing to acquire more merchants ourselves online. You look at our ability to continue to build strength in our surrounds, inclusive of our debit network. Our ability to connect debit and our total client base, I mean we just think we just got started. We got 13,000 software engineers. We're a software shop. It's the largest job category by a ton we have inside the company. And we're happy to add more technical capability wherever needed. You will get us coming out with a product like CashFlow Central, which shows tremendous early demand and, we believe, will also attach well to Clover and attach well to our bank partners and bring everybody better economics. Those I'd mentioned are a few.

Great. And then how about on the issuer solutions side with Optus and FirstVision?

Thanks for that. I mean you heard us talk about Target, Desjardins. That was backed up after a ton of big wins before that. Those will all onboard in '25 is how I think about those. But we completely invested in modernizing Optus, and now we're going to take it to a new cloud-enabled level that we believe will allow us to continue to invest and continue to grow. I mean the opportunities outside the U.S. have not been tapped at its full strength. I think we see that as a large opportunity for our issuing business over time, along with the opportunities we continue to add value-added services to the platform. So we feel very, very good about where we are, the business we've won, the business we've retained, and our ability to grow with our clients.

So Fiserv continues to generate differentiated growth with Clover for SMB, Carat for enterprise, which you touched on briefly. But I think less well understood is the strength of your distribution for each of these leading solutions. So what are your plans to grow direct sales, ISV, bank JV and other channels over the next 12 to 18 months?

Well, I mean, we are very, very focused on financial institutions. We think we're a partner of choice. We do believe that what we -- we started in the premise that if we could bring Clover and a deposit offering in a debit network and digital banking product altogether for a financial institution, we're able to help them grow. So we'll continue to do that. We see opportunity to penetrate that client base much more. SMB is at the heart of America and the heart outside America, too. And so I think you'll continue to see us work closely with our bank network. We like the ISV business. We're a late starter in that business, just like we're a late starter in building out Clover versus other competitors. But I think we've spent a lot on our technology stack. We think we have a differentiated set of products. We think our total offering, what I hear from ISV founders is the capability of everything Fiserv has to offer is highly attractive to them. We will always have our own sales, both digital and physical. That being the nature of our business, both in the largest institutions and, in some cases, feet on the street. I think you got to also look at what our capability to distribute a product like Clover outside the U.S. Excited about Brazil, excited to see what the full year does. You'll see that as a strong second half ramp. I think you also continue to see strength in places like Germany with the Deutsche Bank JV. So our point of view is we're going to go to market multiple ways. We want to be the partner of choice for everybody, and we will also acquire clients ourselves.

Great. And you touched on Brazil expansion, which you noted earlier was April, with a big contribution in the second half. Mexico is also coming. Isn't it later this year? And what should we be expecting from Mexico?

Yes. I think in all cases, these are -- when you go back to our growth algo, right? The growth algo, as I like to keep things pretty simple, is grow more merchants and sell more services, right? All these geographies lend us opportunity. So we came into Mexico. We were able to get business in Mexico. We were able to win in Mexico, and we think we'll do more there. I mean, you'll see it across the globe. I think, obviously, if you look at the business we built in Brazil from scratch, our ability to now come in with Clover, we feel very, very good with. And the bank partners we have really, really have a deep desire for us to distribute with them, like Caixa, as an example.

So in the fourth quarter, Clover revenue growth accelerated 30% with value-added solutions penetration moving up to 19%. As you look at the year ahead, what do you see to be the most important drivers of value-added solutions?

When we look at -- I think it starts with the underlying software stack, right? So understand, it's a SaaS-based product. It has an underlying software stack, that software stack brings a lot of capability. And then you go into people management, you go into inventory management, you go into verticalization of things we're going to do or doing for restaurants. You look at a product like BentoBox and what happens with that attach rate. So for us, it's really helping our small businesses run their business. And there will be different verticals, different in the professional services market versus the retail market versus food services. But for us, it's -- we have a great app store in there. We've categorized it to allow for vertical integration. We have horizontal capability that applies against all, and I think the adoption rates are high right now.

The Kitchen Display System as part of VAS is rolling out in the next few months. What should we be looking for from Kitchen Display System in terms of...

I think it's just continuing our restaurant journey. It's about our restaurant journey. It's about meeting with our small businesses, hearing what they need, what will cause them to be able to run their business better. I mean, we spend a lot of time with our client. Whether it's large institutions or SMBs, we need to listen to our clients in order to innovate. Innovation is not just in the back, it needs to be in the front. And this Kitchen Display System is the exact example of that.

So you've recently re-segmented Fiserv from 3 business segments to 2, merchant and financial solutions. And you hinted at some cross-selling opportunities earlier, but what do you think some of the biggest cross-selling opportunities will be across merchant and financial solutions?

Well, I mean, I think, first of all, we're in a client-centric business, right? And if you take an FI, in some cases, the concept of embedded finance transcends both segments and an FI may want to provide capability that they didn't before. And when you look at our assets, our portfolio of assets, our ability to bring everything from fintech to prepaid product to a debit network to acquiring and how to allow that ordering ahead, loyalty, how to allow that financial institution to be able to do things that maybe they couldn't do before. On the other side, we have businesses that want to do more than their base business on it. And our embedded finance capability transcending the same thing from fintech as a ledger to a debit network to prepay products to loyalty to acquiring allows us to be able to bring an unparalleled set of assets. So I think we've always been about that. Obviously, SMBs are the life blood. They're big to banks. They're big to us. We do it together. Then you look at us coming with a product like CashFlow Central, which is tremendously accretive to our bank partners, is tremendously valuable to our SMBs, is -- and we have an unparalleled ability to distribute it both through Clover and through our bank partners. And our belief is that we're going to give our clients something that they really, really want in the most modern fashion that allow them to run their business better. And that's really what our mission is, whether it's serving a community bank or a credit union, help them grow their business, help them achieve their objectives and us do it through our operating system mentality.

Earlier, you highlighted a couple of big wins in issuer solutions, Desjardins and, I think, Target, which come on board in 2025. When you look at the issuer solutions business, what are the biggest reasons why you tend to win? And where do you think you need to improve?

Well, I mean, I spend all my time on how we're going to get better in every business, in every aspect. I mean, just know that's like -- we don't spend a lot of time focused on why we won. We spend more time on why we need to continue to advance and do better. I think we put a lot of money into the issuing business. But you think about money, but you got to get results, right? And all this was is to modernize the stack, to bring the value-added services, great servicing capability. Remember, yes, we're talking about Desjardins and Target, but we talked about Bread and Atlanticus and Genesis before that. And those were the proved cases that were references for how well we can convert, how well our tech stack hangs together, our servicing capability, our self-serve capability. And I think we just continue that journey. Now we decide we're going to do the next leg of the modernization of that platform. And I think ultimately, I said it earlier, international has a lot more opportunity for us. We love the U.S. but we believe we also can take this outside the U.S. at a different level than we have up until now.

Great. And then shifting gears to fintech, which obviously is going to be part of the new segmentation under financial solutions. How are you pursuing RFPs within financial solutions with larger banks? You've talked about the combination of DNA and Finxact and value-added solutions. But maybe if you can drill down a little bit on how the strategy is resonating with the bigger banks.

Well, I think, like look at -- everybody loves competition. Our clients will have competition, our clients want us to innovate. I think we probably are moving to weight classes we didn't operate in before. And you can look at what we did with Webster, you can look at what we did with NYCB. Those are probably places that you wouldn't have seen us before. You can look at what we're doing with Finxact on One Finance and the Walmart sub there and scaling that. And not only scaling it, but after we built it out and continued growing it, renewing it for another 5 years, which is a testament to the capability Finxact has. This will be a long journey. I think we think about how to bring our technology stack in our surrounds. We do think our digital capability. We do think the embedding of Ondot and card control capability, along with all the other payment capabilities into mobile banking platforms, is a differentiating factor. We do have the largest digital user base out there. So when you put it all together, we think we got a really good hand to compete at the high end. And we think we've built a bunch of tools like things we talk about, the commitment tacker or AI for servicing, that over the long haul make us the best servicer around. And so it's small and tall. We want to give as much. We today are having a -- up at our office, an AI data summit for 35 CIOs across the country, who came in for us to talk to them about our ability to help them have better AI delivered by us and better data capability that's delivered by us. So that's just what goes on in our shop continually, how do we take our clients and how do we help them grow their business, how do we help them think and innovate about the future. So I think there's a lot going on there.

When you look across your 2 business segments, where do you see the biggest opportunity to implement gen AI to improve revenue growth?

Well, I said it to the clients today. My point of view, we have 3,500 banks alone on kind of core systems, as you might call them, deposit loans or rounds. I really think the job for us and AI for them is helping them grow their business. It's not how to charge them per capability. Now I'm sure everybody will, but like I want to be -- have us be their trusted partner on it and help them run their business better. I think if you said to me, with 13,000 software engineers, we're thinking more about how to double their capability through AI, which ultimately translates to top line growth. To me, that's the #1 job in the company, and that's what people buy from us. And that's what we've become, a software shop. So allocating our AI talent against improving their delivery rates, which is -- will also affect cycle times and revenue but also give us opportunity. Now none of this is in the model today. None of this, if you came and looked at whatever we guided out there, is in that guide. It's what we believe we could do and why we feel so strongly about our long-term sustainability and growth rates because we were -- I said this before, and -- we were using AI before it was called AI in many ways to actually drive a lot of economics to the back of the business. And I think now we need to use AI and data. Remember, we have a data advantage. I believe we have a data advantage. And in order to have an AI advantage, you need a data advantage first. That data advantage will help us help our clients grow their business better. That would be -- that's what we want to do, as opposed to let's build AI as a service for our clients and charge them for it isn't quite as interesting. Now of course, there's other applications of AI on how we could be better on lead management and how we can be better on sourcing clients and the like. But I think if we could get that quality and productivity gain that I believe we can over the next few years out of those 13,000 software engineers, we don't want to have any less than those, but we'd love to double the output of them.

So in the fourth quarter, adjusted operating margin hit a post-First Data merger high of 40.7%, and your midterm guide commits to 100 basis points of annual operating margin expansion. What's the secret sauce to Fiserv's outsized margin expansion?

I don't know about secret sauce. I don't -- we don't have any really. Like there's no Big Macs being made over here or anything. So I think it's more like -- you got to be 5-tool athletes, right? We talked about 5-tool athletes. We run a leadership academy, and we take all of our senior VPs and it's all about making them 5-tool athletes. And for those who aren't following when talking 5-tool athlete is -- think about somebody who can hit for average, can hit for power, somebody who can throw, somebody who can run, and somebody who can field, right? And in our case, we want great client managers, great client leaders, great overseers of technology innovation as business managers, just not as technologists. We want people who can be manically focused on driving quality while looking at how to improve process and then ultimately, be great people leaders, right? So that's our 5-tool athlete. And so I don't -- and I used to say a thousand years ago, anybody can get a great control environment, anybody can reduce expense, anybody can improve quality. I need people who could do all 3, right? That's what I'd say 20 years ago. Today, we've elevated it to the 5-tool athlete and the capability to manage every element of the P&L and lead people. I've said earlier to people, I think our retention rate on our engineering staff is fabulous. That's a leadership issue. People want to -- we have great technologists, people who have been CIOs of public companies, who are in our segments overseeing the technology of the segment. And people want to look up north and think the people are not there because of anything other than their technical capability and their good people leadership.

One of the most topical subjects in payments right now is Reg II. And you recently noted that you won 20 e-commerce clients throughout online debit transactions under Reg II. So what were the keys to winning these clients? One of the major networks earlier today said they expect to retain the vast majority of their clients around Reg II because they have dual messaging approval, and they think most of the competitors are only single messaging. So maybe if you could talk about kind of the key factors that drove the wins and maybe some of the underlying technology that you think really differentiates STAR and Accel.

Well, I'm kind of good with winning some of it. I'll be upset, but I never expected to win all of it or whether I think that's even rational at any level. So winning some of it is really accretive for us. I just want to lay that out there. And look at -- I mean, go back to why this exists, right? Go back because -- like we throw out Reg II, and I'm not sure everybody always understands well, why? Well, when Durbin was initiated, maybe e-comm was a little glimmer, and it was always about having multiple networks on the card. And so I think it was appropriate to change. There was nothing odd about the change. It might have taken 10 years for the change. But somebody finally figured out, well, there's a bunch of e-comm transactions that don't live by the same rules as card-present transactions. So I just step back on that because I think we [ boarded ] out Reg II, and there's nothing -- there was no magic to it. It was rational. It just brought what it brought to card-present to card-not-present because card-not-present mattered. So hold that thought. We have debit networks. We definitely have debit networks. And STAR and Accel are very, very capable, and they're for client choice. So it really is about client choice, right? And those clients could be merchants really is what we're talking about. And look at -- we're great partners to banks, and we're great partners to merchants. We built the capability a long, long time ago on these networks to be able to message in a manner that when this day happened, we would be capable to compete. All we're doing is competing for transactions, right? And the only people who ever make the decision are the clients. So it's something -- obviously, people have made the choice to do elsewhere because they always wanted the choice, right? So I'm just trying to simplify it, not complicate it. This is not a large complicated matter in my mind. I think we want to do a great job for our clients, and I think there's fabulous competitors in this space. We feel we're the #3 debit network, and that causes people to want to make a choice.

When would you expect some of these big e-commerce wins to start to move the needle on revenue and earnings?

Wow. Yes. I mean we have a big company. You know what I mean? We got like, I don't know, like almost $20 billion in revenue. So I mean everything matters. Everything matters. It all adds up. It's not any -- this is not a silver bullet company. It's a -- we've got a lot of good businesses. We run them like individual businesses. And yes, we expect the debit volume to be helpful to us.

So Fiserv is a leading implementer of FedNow for your NOW payment gateway. What's been the uptake of FedNow among your customer base?

Well, we signed about 200 clients last year onto it. We're implementing it. I mean, it's one of these things where our ability to implement is not the issue. Our bank's desire to have it is not the issue. Now we need client adoption, right? And I'd say that has not been nearly as fast as the Fed would want. And we do spend time and talk about it. But our job is to -- maybe a good way to think about it, David, our approach inside this company is we're going to give everybody every option to move money in any way they want. And we want to be there in any way, shape and form, whether it's real-time payments, whether it's FedNow, whether it's Zelle, whether it's Zelle at different levels, whether it's merchant acquiring, whether it's through a debit network, whether it's CashFlow Central. Our job is to just provide every possible vehicle, invest in them in a way that's ubiquitous for our clients, make it easy to use. And then it's always about client choice as far as I'm concerned.

So earlier, you touched on CashFlow Central, and you've recently signed 2 large banks, Washington Federal and U.S. Bank. What were the keys to some of these 2 big wins? And how impactful do you think CashFlow Central could be in helping you move upmarket in the fintech space?

Could you explain with the last sentence?

Well, CashFlow Central may be more in a cross-selling context. In other words, you talked about cross-selling earlier, one Fiserv across merchant and financial solutions. So maybe just big picture, what's the one Fiserv impact of CashFlow Central?

I think it's, over the long haul, accretive to growth. I mean it's clearly accretive to growth. It won't be accretive to growth in '24. I think when you get to '25 and '26, it matters. I'm trying to react to large your -- large fintech comment. I'm trying to decode it. What do you mean by that?

Well, in other words, so you've had a lot of success cross-selling payments through the bank channel, right? And if I think back on the Fiserv-First Data merger logic, a lot of it -- a lot of the revenue synergies were bank merchant, right? And so when I think about CashFlow Central as being a powerful SMB merchant solutions, it strikes me that, that could be a pretty powerful way for your bank customers, both down-market and up-market, to sell to their merchant customers and kind of build out their relationship with the merchant customers.

Yes, I think that's -- okay, yes, I think like look at -- in and of itself, it's a powerful SMB tool. The fact that we're the leading bank merchant partner just doubles down on it. And our ability to help banks acquire more SMBs through the combo of SpendTrack, which is another great tool for payments, CashFlow Central and our merchant acquiring business, I think, allows our banks to compete at a different level than they did before. And so we've always been the partner of choice for banks. We've made that an emphasis of ours because we believe that we're -- ability to bring them software is actually expanding TAM for ourself. So I think it's powerful. I think it's powerful against both segments. You should expect us to distribute it through Clover, and you should expect us to distribute it through our bank network.

Got it. Thank you for that. Just shifting to capital allocation. The last year, Fiserv used 117% of its free cash flow for share buyback. You bought back 5% of your total outstanding stock. So for this year, what are your biggest capital allocation priorities among organic investment, debt pay-down, share repurchase, acquisition?

Yes. I would say, when you look back at last year, I kind of look at it 2 ways. I don't think we set out the year to allocate our capital that way. We had spent $2 billion leading up to it on acquisitions over the past couple of years before that. And I think, highly possibly, yes, I thought it was going to be a little more balanced than that. We're clearly not upset with it. We don't feel like, oh, boy, we should have done that. But I mean, we think we're very good at taking properties, buying them, integrating them and putting them in a much bigger platform and generating tremendous economics from it. We did pay $56 million for Clover. So that kind of worked out okay. We paid a couple hundred million dollars for Ondot, and it's in 1,000 banks in our mobile banking platform. So those are just -- Bento, already showing up. And I think Finxact will be a long-term unbelievable asset, which I think the scale proof cases occurred on the Walmart fintech. I would like to see us be able to do more of those things. I'm not making any big grand announcements here. But I would say, it wasn't like we got up and said, let's spend over 100% of our free cash flow on buying back the shares [ that went better ] than I thought. I think it worked out really good for everybody, if you look at where we bought them back at. But I like to see us do a little more in the space of things that we can invest in and build them out in a manner like we did many other things.

What's interesting to you in terms of either your existing markets or possible adjacencies that would be pretty natural to expand into?

I think, you look at -- we're always going to veer on things that help drive digital capability, right? Digital capability, the ability to continue to expand TAM, right? I mean I keep thinking about like we have the ability. CashFlow Central is the perfect example. That was not a addressable market that we're in. We are now, and it will pay off. So it's really for us about what we can distribute within the business we're in, what is the digital capability, and how do we get a larger total addressable market that allows us. And I think we do deploy a lot of capital internally to technology. I think that's the first form of a capital deployment, continuing to grow our technical capabilities inside the house in a manner that allows us to deliver for our client base.

On the topic, you touched earlier on investments you're making in AI to help your bank clients improve their own growth. But when you think about kind of the tech spending priorities, and I know it's a big number, what would be up there as well along with AI?

Clover. I mean at the top, Carat, Finxact. These are all things that we've increased investment in. So I'd call it product development in the software space to help drive our top line growth. I think also, when we say Clover, we're talking about expanding the globe and expanding the software stack in it to be able to sell more value-added services. We will always be putting more money in Commerce Hub and Carat to build out more capability. I think neither Clover or a Carat will be the same 3 to 4 years from now. It's not -- this is not -- they're super early innings, and they require a lot of care and feeding, and we love caring and feeding them. So none of this is a burden at all. I think our data capability along with the AI capability will have economics deployed to it that they didn't have before because we continue to see the ability for us to help our clients grow, which help us grow, which help us get more TAM from them ultimately. Obviously, building out our digital platform, our complete conversion to XD is a good, strong investment. That's the next-generation digital banking capability. So those would be a few.

Earlier, you mentioned the build-out of kind of software stack and I think at the end of last year, you mentioned maybe at Analyst Day that you were also building out capability for Clover in retail and services. What are the time lines for kind of verticalization in those end markets?

I think they're already starting. I mean these things are constant builds. They don't like boink your nose and all of a sudden, it's done. And the more you veer into any one of these vertical's take at retail, you see that retail has a lot of tenants to it. And we're going to take where the biggest pie is, but then we'll continue to expand on that pie. So I think we already have good presence in both of those. It's how do we bring more software to those clients. We know that the ARPU lift is very, very strong for us. But I think it's all in our calculus over the next 1.5 years, really.

We've undergone a couple of big changes in payments, I think, from a few years ago thinking that e-commerce was the way to go. And now e-comm companies are investing a lot in the physical point of sale, which is where kind of Fiserv-First Data initially started out. As you look out over the next few years, how do you see the environment evolving for omni-channel payments where you have tremendous assets? And how do you think the competitors will try to stack up against Fiserv now that omni-channel seems to be kind of the broadly accepted strategy as opposed to just e-comm?

Yes. I mean, first of all, I would argue that we were the omni-channel early converser. And I think people thought we were talking that because it was convenient for us. No different like at First Data. We invested in Finxact because we always believed the combo of a core and a merchant acquiring business was powerful. None of these are happenstance. So I think like, look at -- there will always be pure e-comm players. I think we could have a big debate what's harder, physical or virtual. I think bringing them all together in the client's office is a whole trick. I think creating an experience for our clients' clients that is ubiquitous matters a lot. And ultimately, that's why we got 13,000 software engineers, so we can build out capability to continue to delight and win with the best of them in both places. I like it. I think it's good. There's a reason we moved to SMB enterprise processing, so we can bring pure clarity to everybody in our growth vectors and really recognize that value-added services and penetration of value-added services really, really matters.

Thank you for that. With the time we have left, why don't we take questions from investors? Please raise your hand if you have a question. There's a mic going around the room.

Hi, Frank. Thanks so much for coming. We appreciate it. Throughout your career, you've obviously shown a unique ability to put big companies together extremely well. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your capital allocation approach and how you think about acquiring companies moving forward. And then in addition to that, to the extent that you're able to comment on it, there was a recent news release suggesting Fiserv was in consideration to acquire Shift4. So if you have any commentary on that, that would be super helpful.

Well, let's deal with Part A of the question first, right? I've felt very comfortable about our ability to buy companies. I'm not at all feeling constrained, right? I mean our leverage is very good. Our balance sheet is in fabulous shape. Our technical capability is large. So I don't mean to overstep my bounds, but I don't view this as an economic issue. Like can we? I view it as a very, very focused on value creation for our shareholders in a sustainable method. I appreciate your comment about putting companies together. I think we are good at it. It's a we, not a me. And then like -- I don't really know about who's for sale or what's for sale or what people are doing or comment on those things, so I don't really know about that.

Just to follow up on that. Where do you think other companies in your industry, which -- there's been a lot of companies that are kind of these serial acquirers and pushing the companies together. You've done it incredibly successfully. Without need to name names, where do you think just in the process that others maybe trip up?

Jeez, I love saying the following things. One, I'm never saying anything bad about anybody. I love reminding people that I had a lot of sand kicked on me when I ran First Data. But somehow, I kind of -- it wasn't the neighborhood I grew up with [ Sandy ] and [ Jamie ] and Tony Terciano. We'd always take the high road. I think like it's about people. The whole thing is about signing up people. I could go back to Salomon Smith Barney. To me, the most important thing was me signing up the CIO of Salomon Brothers. So I could have the connectivity, so we can get those fixed income systems not to be a trouble. So I think you got to be a little bit -- everybody's got to -- you got to have a team that wants to be selfless, right? And that's hard. It's hard. I've seen it work the other way, too. I've seen the battle of titans at the top. And ultimately, the [ mines occurs ]. So I think the #1 item is talent management. I think the rest is having a real integration discipline, and we have a playbook on it. And anything we buy, we sit down at the table once a week and go through everything we're supposed to do in it. But that means everybody sits at the table as one body trying to get the job done. Is that helpful?

Perhaps just a closing question, Frank. In this journey to becoming a software company, and it seems like your -- you made a lot of progress in that respect, as you look out maybe beyond this year, what are some of the longer-term milestones we should watch out for in terms of Fiserv's transformation to a software company? What are the...

It's interesting. And actually, it's a great question. I didn't really ever get up and say, here's the objective. Let's convert to a software company. It wasn't like, hey, I got an idea. Let's be a software company. It just happens to be what we've done our whole life, build systems. And what became clear and was my first thought in the craziness of taking First Data is that if I could just sell one more thing to every merchant, we maybe could save this company. And then it became clear, why don't we sell a platform, right? But I want to be very clear. It wasn't like, hey, let's get a better multiple, become a software company. I think you've got to build software, deliver it, get it adopted. And actually, I grew up with a deep belief that software is the great enabler, right? It was -- when I got to First Data, I said to everybody, well, it's okay. I know we're not very good, but we could build things and we can leapfrog people. And I worry about everybody else doing that and tell us every morning when I get up. So I think it's just what to watch out for. Hold us accountable to deploy a s*** load of money into building stuff that clients want and buy. And we don't go on crazy experiments or do things to get -- like convince ourselves like, okay, we're going to call ourselves that. Yes, we're going to call ourselves a software company and hope people value us that way. No, let our clients consume it, let it be sticky, let's continue to grow. We got 85% recurring revenue business with an expanding TAM. And so just hold us accountable to do our work. That's what I would say.

Great. Well, Frank, thanks so much for being with us here today. We greatly appreciate it. Julie, thanks to you. And Nicholas, I appreciate you being part of the conference as well.

Our pleasure, man. Thanks. Good conference. Thank you.