Fiserv Zeroes in on Restaurants As Its New CEO Settles in

Fiserv Inc.’s Clover point-of-sale technology is set to make a splash in the highly competitive restaurant market with the expected launch next month of Clover Hospitality, the company’s top brass said early Thursday. Lilia, an Italian eatery in Brooklyn, is the first client, said Michael Lyons, the company’s chief executive, who trumpeted the new product’s sophistication. “It’s a high-end solution for restaurants,” Lyons told equity analysts during a call to discuss Fiserv’s first-quarter results.

Lyons succeeds Frank Bisignano, whom President Trump tapped to run the Social Security Administration. Lyons formerly was president of PNC Financial Services Group.

The thrust into restaurants comes as a wide range of payment-technology firms have competed for the hospitality market. Clover, however, has proven popular over the years, and has emerged as a star performer for Fiserv’s merchant-services division. Overall, the product generated $296 billion in gross payment volume in the first quarter, up 8% year-over-year, Fiserv reported just before the earnings call. Revenue from Clover grew 27% in the quarter, though the company does not report the absolute figure.

Restaurants in recent years have proved to be a hotly contested market, attracting a wide range of processing heavyweights, including Lightspeed Commerce Inc., Shift4 Payments Inc., Square, and Toast Inc. Still, Fiserv is eyeing the market now as a key source of growth for Clover, which banks have been adopting recently “as part of a strategic initiative to address [small-and-medium-size] businesses,” Bob Hau, Fiserv’s chief financial officer, told analysts during the call.

The new thrust into restaurants comes as Fiserv seeks to build on Clover’s role as a growth motor for the company’s Merchant Solutions unit. The operation attracted 33 clients in the quarter, all of them potential distribution hubs for the technology. Small-business volume growth for Clover in the quarter, however, clocked in at 3%, down from an 8% growth rate in the same quarter last year, though Fiserv is working to reignite that expansion. The technology has been introduced in 13 countries, with four added during the first quarter, Lyons said, while Fiserv has added Klarna to enable payment options on the technology in the U.S. market.

Bisignano during the call took the opportunity to trumpet Clover’s growth. “Seven years ago, I was debating with you guys [analysts] whether Clover would be the heavyweight champ,” he said, indicating the analysts now have an answer. Bisignano’s reference was to his former company, First Data Corp., which acquired Clover in 2012. Fiserv bought First Data in 2019 for $22 billion.

For the quarter, Fiserv logged $4.79 billion in revenue, up 5% over the first quarter last year. The company’s other division, the financial-solutions unit, which serves banks, generated revenue of $2.42 billion, up nearly 6%. For this unit, Lyons expressed optimism for stronger growth. “The pipeline is huge here,” he noted, without being more specific.

For now, Lyons indicated there’s work to do internally. “There’s still opportunity at the core to increase the efficiency of the business,” he told the analysts. “Frank has been incredible getting after these, but there’s still more work we can do.”