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Giant processor Fiserv Inc. said its revenue from its merchant business increased to $1.85 billion in the first quarter, a 12.1% increase from $1.65 billion a year ago.
Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv said its two other segments—financial technology and payments and networks—also had revenue increases. Revenue for the financial technology business was $792 million in the quarter, a 1.8% increase from $778 million in the year-ago quarter. Revenue in its payments and networks segment was $163 billion in the quarter, an 11.6% increase from $1.46 billion last year.
“Our merchant business continued to outperform, while our payments and fintech segments demonstrated the depth of our financial institution client partnerships, as we provided support and innovation through a volatile period,” Frank Bisignano, Fiserv president and chief executive, said in a statement.
Among the quarter’s achievements, Fiserv noted its Clover point-of-sale system unit experienced a 22% increase in revenue growth in the quarter and its Carat commerce unit revenue increased 16%.
Within its payments and network segment, Fiserv said the volume of Zelle peer-to-peer payments increased 42% in the quarter and the number of clients using Zelle increased 32%. Zelle is owned by Early Warning Services LLC.
In the quarter Fiserv announced it was working with Central Payments LLC, a provider of banking-as-a-service for fintechs and embedded-finance businesses, to enable fintechs to bring financial products and services to market faster.
More recently, Fiserv said Apple Inc.’s Tap to Pay on iPhone technology can be used with the Clover POS platform. The technology enables merchants to use consumer-level iPhones as payment-acceptance devices without requiring a dongle. Fiserv also added a platform that can issue digital versions of replacement debit cards.
For the quarter, Fiserv had $4.55 billion in revenue, a 9.9% increase from $4.14 billion in the same quarter a year ago. Its net income of $563 million was a 15.8% decrease from $669 million a year ago.
