Fidelity National Information Services Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 4, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Strong second-quarter execution: Revenue rose 5.3% pro forma, adjusted EBITDA increased 7.4% with 113 basis points of margin expansion, and adjusted EPS grew 8.8%. Free cash flow more than tripled year over year to $525 million, prompting a $100 million increase to the full-year outlook.
  • Positive Sentiment: Banking Solutions remained a key growth driver, with revenue up 6.1% and EBITDA up 10.6%; recurring revenue was steady at 5%. Management cited strong demand for payments, fraud prevention, data, lending, modernization, and cybersecurity solutions.
  • Positive Sentiment: TSYS integration is progressing well: FIS reported wins with two large international banks, 72% of Total Issuing revenue is now contracted through 2029 or later, and joint-client ACV sales rose 35% year over year. The company remains on track for more than $150 million of EBITDA benefit from synergies by 2028.
  • Negative Sentiment: Capital Markets underperformed expectations: Revenue grew 3.2%, while professional services declined 17% because of weaker sales and slower backlog conversion. FIS cut its full-year Capital Markets growth outlook to 3%–3.5% from 5.5%, citing execution issues, UBS/Credit Suisse-related attrition, and continued pressure in lending.
  • Neutral Sentiment: FIS is evaluating strategic alternatives for select Capital Markets products that do not fit its long-term profile, though management emphasized that this is not a review of the entire segment. The company expects modest Capital Markets reacceleration in the fourth quarter and recurring growth acceleration in 2027.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Fidelity National Information Services Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

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Operator

Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the FIS second quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, George Mihalos, Head of Investor Relations.

George Mihalos
Head of Investor Relations at FIS

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for the FIS second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. This call is being webcasted. Today's news release, corresponding presentation, and webcast are all available on our website at fisglobal.com. On the call with me this morning is our CEO and President, Stephanie Ferris, and our CFO, James Kehoe. Stephanie will begin the call with a strategic and operational update, followed by James, who will review our financial results. Turning to slide three. Today's remarks will contain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties as described in the press release and other filings with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. Please refer to the safe harbor language.

George Mihalos
Head of Investor Relations at FIS

Throughout this call, we will be presenting non-GAAP information, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net earnings, and adjusted net earnings per share. These are important financial performance measures for the company, but they are not financial measures as defined by GAAP. Reconciliation of our non-GAAP information to the GAAP financial information is presented in our earnings release. With that, I'll turn the call over to Stephanie.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Thanks, George. Good morning, everyone. Several years ago, we laid out a bold multi-year plan to reposition FIS. We committed to re-accelerating growth in our banking business, improving our margins, and driving increased cash flow. Every one of those actions was in service of three outcomes: to make FIS more client-centric, to simplify how the company runs, and to drive shareholder value. Our second quarter results demonstrate that this transformation is achieving the outcomes we set out to deliver. banking grew at the high end of our range with continued strength across banking and payments. Adjusted EBITDA margins expanded and free cash flow more than tripled year-over-year. Our Total Issuing Solutions acquisition TSYS is playing out as expected, with real client wins and revenue growth across the portfolio, as well as significantly improved cash flow. At the same time, our partnership with Anthropic is progressing.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

While our overall results reinforce the strategy and priorities we've been executing against for several years, you've seen by now our expectations for Capital Markets for the remainder of the year. I want to assure you that we are not satisfied with our performance in Capital Markets and remain focused on improving those results. Both James and I will cover this in our prepared remarks. Turning to slide five. Our second quarter results are strong and demonstrate the durability of our business model. We delivered revenue of $3.4 billion, up 5.3% on a pro forma basis. Banking grew 6.1% at the high end of our outlook, driven by continued momentum in both banking and payments. Capital Markets grew 3.2% at the low end of our outlook. Recurring revenue grew 5% across both segments, and recurring sales grew 14%.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Adjusted EBITDA grew 7.4%, margins expanded 113 basis points, and adjusted EPS grew 9% toward the high end of the range, reflecting stronger execution across the business. Free cash flow was extremely strong in the quarter, increasing more than threefold and leading us to raise our full-year free cash flow outlook by $100 million. These results reflect the financial model we've been intentionally building. Durable revenue, expanding margins, disciplined capital deployment, cash generation, and to drive shareholder value. Turning to slide six. Let me spend a moment on how we've structured FIS because it is central to understanding both this quarter's results and where we're headed. We serve financial services companies of every size, from the largest and most complex financial institutions in the world to small banks and credit unions. We are central to our clients' day-to-day operations and modernization efforts, and we deliver against that privilege.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Post the Total Issuing Solutions acquisition, we expanded our total addressable market by $28 billion, significantly increasing the opportunity for our combined solution portfolio. Most importantly, that broader portfolio complements the way clients have always engaged with us. Now, 72 of our top 100 clients consume capabilities across banking, payments, and Capital Markets. We typically enter a client relationship through a core ledgering platform, whether a banking core, a commercial lending core, or a trading system in Capital Markets. Once that foundation is established, we expand the relationship by selling payments and other value-added services, executing our cross-sell and expand strategy. The economics of this model are compelling. On average, clients consuming solutions across all three ecosystems generate nearly twice the revenue of clients using only a single solution. A second benefit of our integrated portfolio is AI.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Because we run many of our clients' core systems, we sit on a rich set of data across banking, payments, and Capital Markets. As AI adoption grows, that data becomes a meaningful advantage and enables us to deliver smarter solutions, automate workflows, and improve outcomes for clients. We're already seeing early proof points in areas such as fraud and financial crimes, where connecting data across our platform creates value for clients and further differentiates FIS. The third benefit of serving clients across an integrated portfolio is showing up in our commercial performance. As I said earlier, we serve financial service companies of every size. Our consolidated commercial engine continues to gain momentum as we execute our strategy to shift from lower-margin products to higher-margin solutions. Enterprise-wide sales growth increased double digits over the last 12 months, reflecting a more focused portfolio and strengthening commercial motion.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

One of the best examples of this is in our Total Issuing business. Turning to slide seven. Let me remind you of the TSYS for this deal. Through the acquisition of TSYS, we gained access to a large and rapidly growing global issuing TAM, a market we did not previously serve at scale, and we did it by acquiring the industry's best, most scaled processor. Importantly, that platform serves the same set of financial institutions FIS has built its business around. The strategic fit was there from day one. Same clients, complementary capabilities, one integrated value proposition. In the quarter, we won two new very large financial institutions, a top 10 Latin American bank and a top 10 private sector commercial bank in India. On renewal velocity, we continue our momentum of renewals.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Since the start of 2025, we've renewed approximately a third of Total Issuing revenue, with 72% of the portfolio now under contract through 2029 and beyond, up from 65% the last time we spoke. That's validation of the platform and the predictability of the revenue base. More than 90 accounts are now signed up for our consuming modernized components, including 60 U.S. banks. Opportunities of 1 million accounts or more is above 85%. Further proof that when the deal is big and complex, we win. The most important part of our TSYS, though, is the better together story. It is starting to compound. Enterprise-wide ACV sold to joint clients grew 35% year-over-year in the first half. Put simply, strength and complexity at scale, plus a modern roadmap is driving commercial momentum.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

This is exactly what we envisioned when we brought these businesses together. Total Issuing strengthens FIS, FIS strengthens Total Issuing, and clients are choosing the combined proposition. I know there's been some concerns around Visa Pismo entering this space and disrupting our business. You heard from the CEO of Visa last week that their strategy around Pismo is to target small to mid-size banks and fintechs, not large banks where we operate. The complexity and scale needed to win and serve these large clients is the strength and strategy of Total Issuing Solutions. Taken together, client wins, renewal performance, modernization progress, and growing cross-sell momentum give us confidence that the acquisition TSYS is playing out as expected. The business is performing very well, and we are very much on track to deliver against our synergy targets for 2026 and beyond. Let me now turn to Capital Markets on slide eight.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

We are providing additional detail on this segment because it is important to understand the factors shaping performance through 2026. Capital Markets operates across three solution ecosystems. Trading and asset services, lending, and treasury and risk. In the first half of the year, the segment generated $1.6 billion in revenue, 74% of which was recurring, and delivered a 51.7% adjusted EBITDA margin. This is a business that is actively transforming. In 2026, we leaned in hard to accelerate that transformation across a genuinely tough operating backdrop. We began the year with a known revenue headwind related to UBS's acquisition of Credit Suisse. The resulting client attrition is impacting 2026 revenue growth by approximately one percentage point.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

That impact has been concentrated within trading and asset services, and together with the timing of renewals, negatively affected both recurring and total revenue growth in the business during the first half of the year. We entered the year leaning in hard to accelerating our sales momentum and the conversion of our existing backlog, as well as an expectation for organic growth to recover in our lending business from the volatility we saw in 2025. Unfortunately, these expectations did not materialize. We began the year expecting the lending business to drive one point of organic growth for the segment. First quarter interest rates pressures weighed on lending volumes, and we now expect growth to be tempered, creating a modest drag on the segment recurring revenue growth. Rest assured, we are actively addressing these misses with actions that we've already taken and with new actions that we're putting in place now.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

What has not changed is the underlying business fundamentals. The backlog is strong. Demand is strong. Client relationships are strong. Margin quality, our recurring revenue base, and our market position all remain intact. We have confidence in this business going forward. As a result, we're re-basing our Capital Markets guide to reflect actual first half trends with modest re-acceleration in Q4. As part of that same discipline review, we're also announcing an evaluation of strategic alternatives relating to select products that we're actively managing within our Capital Markets segment that may not fit the strategic profile of our overall business. That work reflects our commitment to focus this segment on its highest value, highest margin solutions. James will take you through the shape of the revised outlook in a moment. Turning to slide nine.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

AI is becoming an increasingly important driver of growth, innovation, and client value across FIS, and is increasingly a core driver of how we build, sell, and serve. Today, we have 10 AI products in market, 200 customers live on those products, and a pipeline of more than 500 opportunities. Adoption is showing up across four layers of the business. On engineering, our teams are seeing 1.5 to two times throughput and 30% fewer defects. On servicing, we've launched five agentic programs with manual tickets down 70% and triage time down nearly 75%. On the workforce side, we now have more than 40,000 active AI copilot users, generating over 16 million total assisted actions. The partnership we announced with Anthropic earlier this year has moved from conception to execution.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Together, we're advancing AI-powered anti-money laundering and agentic fraud capabilities that combine frontier AI technology with FIS's regulatory-grade infrastructure and deep domain expertise. Taken together, our AI investments are compounding in our products, in our productivity, and in our client conversations, and they're becoming a differentiator that is showing up in commercial outcomes. Turning to slide 10. Let me leave you with this. The bold multi-year plan we set in motion is delivering the outcomes we committed to. A more client-centric FIS, a simpler business, and a stronger financial position. Our commercial engine is strong. Our total issuing acquisition TSYS is compounding. Our AI investments are in real products, real productivity, and real client conversation. We acknowledge the challenges in the Capital Markets segment and are actively addressing them. With that, I'll turn it over to James.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

Thank you, Stephanie, and good morning. Overall, we delivered solid results in the second quarter with a strong performance on cash flow. Revenue grew 5.3% on a pro forma basis, with banking coming in above the high end of its outlook and Capital Markets closer to the lower end. Pro forma EBITDA grew 7.4%, with margins up 113 basis points, ahead of our outlook of 75-110 basis points. Margin expansion was led by favorable product mix and cost savings with a very strong performance from the banking segment. Adjusted EPS increased 8.8%, led by EBITDA growth. Cash flow was stellar, more than tripling to $525 million, reflecting the EBITDA growth, lower cash taxes, and accelerated actions to reduce one-time cash expenses. Our leverage ratio decreased to 3.5x, and we returned $270 million to shareholders, primarily through dividends.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

Turning now to our segment results on slide 13. Banking Solutions had a good quarter. Pro forma revenue increased 6.1%, with banking up 5.6% and payments growing 6.4%. Recurring revenue grew 5%, steady with the first quarter and in line with our expectations. Non-recurring revenue grew 21%, primarily led by strong license activity, which is skewed more towards the first half of the year. Adjusted EBITDA advanced 10.6%, with margins expanding 178 basis points. Reflecting favorable product mix, continued cost savings, and integration synergies. Overall, another strong quarter for Banking Solutions. Turning now to Capital Markets on slide 14. Capital Markets revenue increased 3.2%, with recurring revenue growth decelerating to 5.3% from 3.6% in the first quarter. Non-recurring revenue grew 12% as the team executed on select license opportunities. Professional services declined by 17% and fell short of expectations due to lower sales and a slower-than-anticipated conversion of backlog.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

Margins were slightly lower than prior year as the timing of operational expenses more than offset favorable mix. We do expect margin expansion in the back half of the year as these timing impacts normalize. To be clear, we believe in the strength of the Capital Markets business, but we are not pleased with our performance against expectations. As Stephanie laid out, we have taken action on a number of fronts, and these actions will lead to improving results as we exit 2026. Turning now to slide 15 for a quick update on our year-to-date results. Revenue increased 5.9%, with banking at 6.9% and Capital Markets at 3.1%. EBITDA margins expanded by almost 100 basis points on a pro forma basis, reflecting favorable revenue mix, cost savings, and integration synergies.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

We generated approximately $1 billion of free cash flow in the first six months of the year, bringing our trailing 12-month free cash flow to $2.2 billion and allowing us to increase our outlook for the year. Let's turn to our full-year outlook on slide 16. We are forecasting adjusted revenue growth of 4.5%-5%, as compared to 5.1%-5.7% previously. We are reiterating our banking revenue growth outlook. As expected, second half growth rates will moderate compared to the first half due to a much lower contribution from M&A and a smaller growth contribution from non-recurring revenue. Overall, we are feeling good about the banking business. We expect steady organic recurring growth in the second half, despite more difficult year-over-year comparisons. Capital Markets revenue growth is reduced to 3%-3.5%.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

This is a 225 basis point reduction compared to our prior outlook of 5.5% growth and includes a 120 basis point impact from lower professional services, with the remainder coming from slower recurring revenue growth. Both professional services and recurring revenue are negatively impacted by two factors. Firstly, sales are behind plan in the first half of the year. While we anticipate improvement over the second half, the slow start to the year has and will impact revenue over the course of the year. Secondly, the team assumed faster implementation of the robust backlog and pipeline that we had in exiting 2025. We are tracking behind the targeted conversion timelines. Entering the year, we anticipated mid- to high single-digit recurring growth, and we now anticipate mid-single-digit growth.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

While we are not providing a formal 2027 outlook, I do want to help frame the key drivers as you think about the future growth trajectory of this business. Recurring revenue is expected to accelerate from 2026 levels. Lower attrition and improved conversion will more than offset approximately 1 point of headwind from the absence of M&A. License and professional services in aggregate is expected to decline as we continue to transition this business to recurring revenue. Overall, we anticipate that Capital Markets adjusted and recurring revenue growth will accelerate modestly in 2027. Turning now to margins. We have reduced the EBITDA outlook to reflect the lower revenue projections for Capital Markets, and we now anticipate full-year margin expansion of 85-105 basis points, broadly in line with our prior outlook of 95-110 basis points.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

Adjusted EPS is expected to grow 7%-8.5%, and given our strong execution in the first half, we are raising our free cash flow outlook by $100 million to $2.2 billion for the year. Now let's turn to our cash flow goals on slide 17. Free cash flow is a story of strong execution. First-half cash flow is 2.5 times prior year levels, and the latest 12 months is already running at over $2 billion. Strong execution and faster than expected reduction in one-time cash expenses have allowed us to raise our free cash flow outlook by $100 million to a range of $2.15 billion-$2.25 billion. This represents year-over-year growth of 36% at the midpoint, a meaningful step up on the 19% growth we delivered in 2025, and well above our prior outlook of 30% growth.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

We have a clear path to greater than $3 billion of free cash flow by 2028, driven by growth in EBITDA dollars and a disciplined reduction in one-time integration and transformation expenses. Our increased guide for 2026 is a positive step in building confidence that a $3 billion in 2028 is well within reach. Turning now to one-time cash expenses on slide 18. We are moving quickly to rationalize non-GAAP cash expenses, and the results are evident. We are reducing cash costs by $70 million-$730 million at the midpoint. Legacy FIS non-GAAP cash expenses are reduced by 17% compared to our original guide, reflecting disciplined cost management. Let's be clear, we intend to build on this success over the rest of this year and into 2027. Looking further out, we are confident in our ability to significantly reduce one-time cash expenses.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

Combined with EBITDA growth and strong execution, this improved trajectory underpins our confidence in delivering free cash flow of greater than $3 billion in 2028. Let's turn to slide 19 for an update on our integration synergies. The Total Issuing Solutions business is performing very well, and we are very much on track to deliver against our synergy targets for 2026 and beyond. We've captured $13 million of cost savings year to date, and we are tracking close to the high end of our $30 million-$40 million full-year target. We are reiterating our goal of over $150 million in EBITDA benefit by 2028, with cost synergies of $125 million and revenue synergies of $45 million. We have an extensive pipeline of revenue synergies, and we have a long runway with over $125 million of revenue synergies across our global footprint.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

Turning now to our third quarter outlook on slide 20. We are projecting pro forma revenue growth of 2.9%-3.7%. In banking, we expect pro forma growth of 3%-4% as we lose around 100 basis points of M&A contribution compared to the second quarter. In addition to lower M&A, the outlook reflects more moderate non-recurring revenue growth compared to the first half, in line with our expectations. In capital markets, we are projecting growth of 2.5%-3%, with M&A contributing 105 basis points. Recurring revenue growth is expected to pace ahead of adjusted revenue growth. Company EBITDA margin will expand by 80-100 basis points with margin expansion across both segments. Adjusted EPS is expected to grow 4.6%-7.3%. In summary, we had a solid quarter across most metrics.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

We are reiterating our banking growth outlook but reducing our projections for capital markets to reflect current performance. EBITDA margins are projected to expand by 85-105 basis points, broadly in line with our prior outlook. We delivered excellent cash flow results, and we are increasing our full-year outlook to $2.2 billion at the midpoint, reflecting growth of 36%. With that, operator, could you please open the line for questions?

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. One moment for questions. Our first question comes from Tien-Tsin Huang with JPMorgan. You may proceed.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst at JPMorgan

I appreciate you going through the puts and takes here. I just want to better understand the Capital Markets piece. If you don't mind, just the weakness in the professional services. Was that broad based? Are the clients choosing cheaper forms of delivery? Are they prioritizing other tech projects to ramp instead? Just again, trying to better understand what drove the change in expectations from your delivery team.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

I think I'll start, and then James can potentially quantify it. No, we think this is on us. We don't see any trends in market that are changing here. We had come into the year with a strong backlog in professional services. We had leaned in hard to continuing to accelerate both sales and professional services and the conversion of that backlog. The miss is on us. It's not a market condition. What I would say broadly, though, is we don't expect our non-recurring professional services items to be growth on a go-forward basis. We are focused on recurring. We're acknowledging this miss in PS because we did plan for it to grow, and we do think the miss is operationally on us.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst at JPMorgan

Okay. Appreciate you owning that. Just on the products within Capital Markets, Stephanie, you mentioned that. Can you share a little bit more on how this will work? Are these standalone products within Capital Markets? I assume some of that might be bundled with some of your other contracts or perhaps these are just standalone. Just to give us a little more flavor. Thank you.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

That's a great question, Tien-Tsin. Thanks for asking. Within that, as I talked about broadly, just taking a step back. Capital Markets is primarily serves large financial institutions. When you think about it isn't a standalone business. That's what we really tried to express here in terms of within FIS, our largest financial institutions consume across banking, payments and Capital Markets. When you think about whether you're a large financial institution, you're taking our trading and asset services products as well as our commercial lending products, as well as our consumer lending products, as well as our banking cores and our payments capabilities. That's really important to understand. That being said, within the Capital Markets portfolio, there are products, not businesses, but there are several products that don't strategically fit with our business.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

What I mean by that is they may not serve that set of large financial institutions, or they may be products that don't meet the strategic fit of what we're trying to accomplish, like risk management solutions, or we have some data analysis products that we may not sell to that existing LFI base. If we do, this set of products isn't within the natural solution ecosystems we've really focused the business around. We've always been focusing on them, by the way, and harvesting them to the extent it makes sense. We're going to double down on that. I just want to be clear, though, it's not a Capital Markets segment sale. It is looking at products within the segment that don't fit the overall company's strategic profile.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst at JPMorgan

No, that's clear. Thank you, Stephanie.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Dan Dolev with Mizuho. You may proceed.

Dan Dolev
Dan Dolev
Analyst at Mizuho

Hey, guys. Great progress on the banking and lowering the cost base and specifically on raising the free cash flow guide. I have two questions, Stephanie. More on the banking side. How did TSYS perform this quarter? What are you seeing on the competitive landscape here? Then I have a quick follow-up. Thanks.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Sure. Really pleased with the Total Issuing Solutions business, Dan Dolev. By the way, thanks for the comments. It performed in line with the payments growth for the quarter. As you know, it is a significant part of that growth. We're really pleased with how the Total Issuing Solutions business is growing organically. Then we're seeing how well it fits inside the FIS ecosystem. I think in terms of the competitiveness, we're thrilled with how competitive we are here. I gave some of those key insights here because I know there's been a lot of concerns around Visa Pismo. Guys, we serve the largest financial institutions here. We win 80% of the time. We are very competitive. We are the large-scale player. I think you heard from the CEO of Visa. This is not where he's focused. This isn't where big banks are looking to bring things internal.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

This is a scale game. We continue to win very strongly here. Feel really good. As you think about us bringing this together and putting it together underneath a FIS ecosystem on a year-over-year basis, I also shared some of the key wins. We're selling more together than we did individually. Really pleased with the performance here.

Dan Dolev
Dan Dolev
Analyst at Mizuho

Great. Just a quick follow-up. I noticed about 30 million new accounts on file converted over the last 12 months in the presentation. How should we think about this KPI going forward? What can you do to re-accelerate this down the road? Thanks again, congrats.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Yeah. No, it's a great point. The team here is pretty fantastic at converting accounts. You can imagine there was a very large player in the U.S. who bought another player in the U.S., we effectively have converted a significant amount of those accounts. Quite frankly, it's been the biggest conversion I've ever seen, and I've been around fintech a long time, it's gone absolutely flawlessly. Huge shout-out to the Total Issuing teams there. I think as we go forward, you should expect to see, I'm not going to comment on number of accounts, but we win. We win in the U.S., in the large space.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Globally, I don't want to discount our PRIME product because it wins not just large, but also up and down the stack and is quite competitive. This is an important metric for us as we continue to move forward and it continues to grow across the platform. I'm extremely pleased.

Dan Dolev
Dan Dolev
Analyst at Mizuho

Thanks again. Appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Vasu Govil with KBW. You may proceed.

Vasu Govil
Vasu Govil
Analyst at KBW

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I guess, Stephanie, just first on the strategic review within Capital Markets, could you provide any parameters around the size of assets under consideration, and when should investors expect more clarity on the outcomes of the review?

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Thanks, Vasu. No, not yet. Obviously, transparently, we look inside the portfolio of the entire company. You've seen us move on assets. We're always looking from a rationalization standpoint. I think with respect to Capital Markets, though, we're going to do a deeper dive. I don't have a number for you. We'll come back to you as soon as we have something.

Vasu Govil
Vasu Govil
Analyst at KBW

Got it. Thank you for that. Then, I guess a quick one on AI, as that continues to be a big topic in the industry. I wanted to ask, AI is also driving sophistication of cyber threats across the financial ecosystem. Are you seeing a need to reaccelerate your investments in security and fraud prevention? Do you feel like those requirements have already been contemplated in your long-term outlook?

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Vasu, that's a great question. Cyber is one of our biggest technology spends. It has been. It continues to be. We don't see a need to invest more. We continue to prioritize our investment around cyber and resiliency. It is absolutely critical to us. I do see significant amount of investment broadly across the industry. When you think about us as compared to a smaller player, I think we're much better positioned given how much you have to invest here. I also think being in Project Glasswing gives us an opportunity to fortify our defenses much more deeply as we think about being a scaled player here. We take our position in the industry very seriously. We do spend a lot of money on it. It is continuing to be the biggest threat we have. It will continue to be a prioritized effort for us.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

The good news for us is we have a significant amount of technologists. When we find the vulnerabilities, it is not all going through one team. It's not sitting in a funnel. We have the vulnerabilities we can clear pretty quickly. My cyber team has done a fantastic job in terms of using AI itself to, once we find the vulnerability or have the attack, to be able to be more productive with clearing the vulnerability or identifying and moving on the attack by agentifying our own capabilities. Really pleased with our cyber team who continue to work for us 24/7.

Vasu Govil
Vasu Govil
Analyst at KBW

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Darrin Peller with Wolfe Research. You may proceed.

Darrin Peller
Darrin Peller
Analyst at Wolfe Research

Hey, Stephanie. Could you just revisit the comments you touched on with regards to Pismo and the competitive landscape for a moment? Just to sort of set the record straight, given how many questions we get about it.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Yes.

Darrin Peller
Darrin Peller
Analyst at Wolfe Research

Maybe help us understand the bundling and the cross-sell and just why you have a right to win both on the core banking side, but also the issuer processing side.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Maybe I'll refresh some of the conversations that I had in the prepared remarks. Just to be clear, we serve the largest financial institutions globally. We have, just in terms of evidencing the competitive market, we have continued to renew our clients, evidencing competitively. We're continuing to keep share. We're winning new business at significant pace. Our win rate is over 85% when you're competing for large financial institutions with over 1 million accounts on file. We were pleased to announce completely new top 10 banks around the world. When we are competing, we are winning. How are we winning? We have the scale and the products and the capabilities. We are the only known processor that can convert accounts at scale and size. We've never had a failed deconversion or migration.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Above and beyond that, I think it's important to understand and highlight the comments the CEO of Visa said. He's not focused in this area where we play at all. I think the notion of Visa Pismo is going to disrupt Total Issuing Solutions is very challenging to prove. Given our renewal velocity, given our net new wins, and given that the fact that Visa has told you very clearly they're not competing there, the competitive market is perfectly aligned for us to continue to win.

Darrin Peller
Darrin Peller
Analyst at Wolfe Research

Just on the banking segment, can you just highlight what are you seeing right now in the top few areas of demand from your customers? When you think about decision-making, just given we've heard some chats that institutions are holding back on decisions given AI and whatnot. It sounds like you're not seeing that in Capital Markets. At least it was more self-inflicted, I suppose. On the banking side, it looks like results were strong. What are you seeing there in terms of both what areas are the most demand and then decision-making timing? Thanks, guys.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

I think I've talked about this before. The banking demand environment is really strong. When they're talking to us, they're talking to us about wanting to make sure that they can continue to compete in the payment space, whether it's with digital currencies or debit and credit capabilities, serving not only consumers and large commercial customers, but also SMBs. Payments continues to be a very big place where there's a lot of demand. We see a lot of demand around fraud and data. Fraud cost in the bank is escalating at very high paces. There's a lot of demand in our fraud ecosystems. There's a lot of demand for data and data capabilities as banks want to ingest this data so that they can start to utilize AI internally. There's a lot of demand around lending and lending capabilities.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

There's a lot of demand around modernization and wanting to modernize. We don't see banks putting decisions on hold, not in the areas that we're working on. We've been having a lot of conversations with banks as well in terms of cyber and making sure that they and we are all ready for cyber. They rely on us. That's very important. It's not necessarily a product, but it's a capability they know that we need to have, and they need to have, and we work together very closely. We don't see the delayed decision-making. Now again, they don't buy hardware from us, so if they are reallocating capital somewhere, it's not from the areas that we're focused in.

Darrin Peller
Darrin Peller
Analyst at Wolfe Research

Got it. Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Schmidt with KeyBanc Capital Markets. You may proceed.

Andrew Schmidt
Andrew Schmidt
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Hey, Stephanie. Hey, James. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe just ask about just technology strategy within the banking segment. You have the obviously emphasis on the core and the digital surrounds, but there's been a renewed focus on hollowing out the core. Maybe just talk about FIS's position in that environment. Obviously, the core remains important. I think you made an acquire recently with an orchestration platform, kind of a core light strategy. Talk about maybe the strategy when it comes to FIS's ability to adapt if things abstract beyond the core. Thanks so much.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Yeah, Andrew, thanks for the question. This is a very interesting and fun and exciting time for FIS. As you know, we hold a unique position in cores up and down the stack. Our strategy really aligns with how banks want to modernize the banks. It's less about hollowing out the core and how do they want to modernize and what do they modernize first. If you're in the very largest financial institutions and really large banks, they'll start talking to you about wanting to hollow out their core because they're running their own cores. They're starting to think about, do I want to have a ledger? Do I want to have an orchestration layer? Do I want to have a customer master? As you know, we run very large cores today. We have done an acquihire, and we're very excited about it.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

It brings a set of capabilities, and frankly, a leadership and a leader and a team inside FIS that helps really start to put those capabilities in and around our existing cores, such that we can now start to modernize our cores from the inside out. Our customers don't have to modernize their own cores. If they want to modernize their cores and go to a full hollow out strategy, we have those capabilities. Very excited. More to come on this topic, Andrew. We think we're uniquely positioned because we do serve these largest banks generally, and we're a much safer bet in terms of moving from an existing core and hollowing out your core with us. We have, as you know, all the surrounds as you think about hollowing out the core, including payments and all your value-added services.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

This is a topic that we're looking to start talking to you about by the end of the year. We're hoping to have some pretty significant wins. More to come on this. We think we're uniquely positioned given that we have our existing cores, we have our modern banking platform, and now we have capabilities that we've brought internal that will allow banks to either modernize on their existing core or completely hollow out their existing core with capabilities we have.

Andrew Schmidt
Andrew Schmidt
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Got it. Yeah. I thought that was a really interesting pickup. Thanks for those comments, Stephanie. Maybe just double down on Capital Markets for a second. I heard the comments on mid-single digit recurring and then modest acceleration to 2027. Maybe just dig a little bit into those assumptions, just confidence that we can attain those. I don't want to use the word de-risked, but maybe just how you feel about those assumptions going forward. Thanks so much.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Maybe I'll comment qualitatively, and then James can add on if he thinks I've missed anything. I think as you think about, and this is why we wanted to try and provide some detail on the prepared remarks, as we came into 2026, we came in with strong new sales momentum. We knew we were going to have a point of attrition as a headwind as UBS closed and deconverted the CS capabilities in our treasury and asset services business. We came in with a strong new sales outlook, but knew attrition was going to increase a point on us. As you think about 2027, we'll grow over that and have attrition go back to more normalized rates.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

I think the other thing that we expected as we came into 2026 that frankly just didn't occur, was we thought the lending portfolio that had historically driven an organic point of growth inside our segment, which really struggled as you know in 2025, we expected that growth to reoccur. Unfortunately, as we came into 2026, we're not seeing that organic growth and we're not banking on it for 2026, and I wouldn't bank on it for 2027 either. I think as you think about going into 2027, we should benefit from a stronger recurring number as we exit the year in the mid-single digit range, and then we should get a point benefit from attrition grow-over. Then maybe I'll turn it over to James on how to think about the rest of the pieces on non-recurring.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

Just to repeat. This year will end somewhere in the mid-single digit, call it a five-ish kind of range. There'll be no M&A next year, you got to take that out. As Stephanie said, you're asking about level of confidence. The attrition this year was really pushed up by that one client consolidation. That will disappear next year and add back a point. Then the other piece is conversion, and we have a, I would say, medium to high confidence on that. Essentially the recurring and PS that wasn't converted in the current year due to delayed timelines will come back next year. It gives pretty high levels of confidence for that. As we talk through this, I would not ascribe any upside on lending.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

The interest rates are incredibly, they're just stuck where they are right now, we can't count on any improvement on that. We are looking for acceleration overall in recurring. We do anticipate Q3 to be mid-single digit with some acceleration in Q4. You don't have to wait until well into 2027 to see improving prospects. Then on PS and license. This is a business that is in the low 70s in terms of percentage of recurring, and our banking position business is 85%. Over time, we want to more aggressively grow and step up the recurring growth rate and de-emphasize license and PS. Expect those two to be flattened down next year.

Andrew Schmidt
Andrew Schmidt
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Thank you so much.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

Yeah.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jason Kupferberg with Wells Fargo. You may proceed.

Jason Kupferberg
Jason Kupferberg
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Good morning, guys. Thanks. I wanted to start on the payments business. It's actually now the largest of your three businesses. You were up 6% for the second straight quarter. Is that level of growth sustainable in the second half, just based on the account conversion backlog that you're seeing and pipeline of new opportunities?

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Wow, that's a specific question, Jason. Just weighing through that. I'll let James shuffle through his paper so he can try to get to an answer, but maybe I'll talk about it. We're really pleased with payments. You're right, it is the biggest part of our business, which is what gives us confidence around FIS continuing to maintain to be a mid-single digit grower. As you know, in order to do that, we needed to have the Total Issuing Solutions business inside the FIS ecosystem because payments in general, the credit issuing side adds some pretty nice growth for us. In terms of total issuing, it is growing at the same pace as the overall payments business. I don't have in front of me the expectations of payments as we go in the back half of the year, and I'm not sure that we guide to it.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

I think we want to avoid guiding to it.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Yeah.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

What we would say is we do expect it to continue at similar levels. Two is it will outpace banking just in general and longer term. It definitely will stay in this mid-single digit range.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Yeah.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

We're incredibly happy with it and we're incredibly happy with the position of TSYS within that portfolio.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Yeah.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

Which is doing well as well.

Jason Kupferberg
Jason Kupferberg
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Okay. Yeah, no, that's a good color. That's what I was looking for. I just wanted to circle back on Capital Markets as well, because it sounds like we're talking about company-specific kind of execution-related challenges. Just on the professional services side, any issues in terms of not having sufficient resources to perform implementations of the backlog or has there been just some misscoping or do you think in hindsight just some of the projections on timing were a little too aggressive? Just wanted to kind of unpack what you think some of the root cause is here.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Yeah.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

I'd be clear on one thing, it's principally the PS call down, which is call it half the overall-

Jason Kupferberg
Jason Kupferberg
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Yeah.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

Capital Markets is about $90 million in revenue. A little bit more than half is PS. The principal issue is actually it's not really the conversion, it's sales in PS. We had a pretty large miss in the first half in terms of, call it ACV sales. Unfortunately, that has a disproportionate impact on the P&L because anything sold in the first half converts at about 75% in the current year.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

Unfortunately, this is already sold, I would say the largest part of the PS miss is actually lower ACV sales. Then there is a conversion part to it, but it's not the biggest amount. Conversion was a little bit different. We set goals on the timing and conversion of an existing pretty strong backlog and pipeline, and we've just missed against the execution of those, so it's purely on us. I would say it's predominantly a sales issue in PS.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Yeah.

Jason Kupferberg
Jason Kupferberg
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Okay. Understood. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Will Nance with Goldman Sachs. You may proceed.

Will Nance
Will Nance
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Hey, guys. Thank you for taking the questions. James, I appreciate some of that color that you provided next year in Capital Markets. The two-part question, I guess first on the non-reoccurring revenue growth in banking, what's driving that 21% growth in the first half of the year or in this most recent quarter on a pro forma basis? I guess more importantly, as we look out into 2027, what kind of grow over does that represent? Is that going to be a headwind to overall banking revenue growth? The second part is on the large bank issuing conversion that you mentioned. It seems like TSYS is running around 6%-ish, kind of in line with the overall payments revenue growth on a pro forma basis this quarter.

Will Nance
Will Nance
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Just how are you thinking about some of the puts and takes as that normalizes and as the non-reoccurring revenue growth normalizes into 2027?

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

There are two big pieces as you look at term fees because I think you're looking at the year-to-date. I think in the second quarter we had some term fees. These are probably pretty well known in the market, Huntington, Cadence, and the Jenius Bank. They drove up. That's kind of brought the 12% above a normalized growth rate. Then you'll recall in the first quarter of the year, we signed some large strategic deals that had a one-time license contribution in the first quarter but drive recurring revenue over a five-year horizon. We didn't get into the specifics of with whom, these are large deals will become part of the business model going forward, more engagement with third parties to become alternative sales channels.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

All we're saying in the second half is we're returning to a normal level of license activity and the bigger deals and term fees are behind us.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

I think the other thing I might add is recurring. As you know, license and term fees can be a little bit volatile quarter-to-quarter, which is why it's tough to guide this business on a quarterly basis. If you look at recurring and Banking Solutions, feeling really good about that, staying nice and steady for us. I think James Kehoe's comments in the prepared remarks talk about obviously as we get into Q3 and Q4, we're lapping the M&A contribution, it's still staying up there and even against tougher comps from the prior year. Banking Solutions recurring continues to be really strong, and as you mentioned, payments continues to be a big contributor of that. On expectations, I think you keep asking us to guide on payments. We'll come back to you as we come into 2027 in terms of how to think about the segment.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Broadly, I think Banking Solutions in general, if you think about Banking Solutions from a core and digital standpoint, typically would be a lower single-digit grower and payments would be more to a mid-single-digit grower. That is in guidance for 2027. That's just how to think about the pieces of the segment as you think about market growth. Obviously, we're driving a lot of synergies across both banking and payments as we bring Total Issuing into the solution. There'll be some acceleration there. We'll come back to you as we guide for 2027.

Will Nance
Will Nance
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Got it. Appreciate that.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

Sorry, it's really a tale of two stories here as well. While we had execution issues in Capital Markets sales, the actual sales performance in the banking business is super strong, and I want to emphasize that. It's actually the recurring is in line with plan in the first half of the year, and actually PS was slightly ahead. It really is down to execution. When you look at growth versus prior year, we've had double-digit growth in the total Banking Solutions ACV for three quarters in a row, with actually the 2nd quarter being high double-digit growth in Banking ACV. We're super happy about the sales performance in banking and not happy at all about the Capital Markets performance in sales.

Will Nance
Will Nance
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Got it. James, thank you for all that. Just a quick one on the strategic alternatives for Capital Markets. This might be another one for James. I know you talked about just some of the considerations around asset sales like tax leakage, stranded costs, and leverage levels overall. Just how are you thinking about the feasibility and the puts and takes of profitably offloading businesses in Capital Markets? I guess how does that weigh into the decision to either offload or keep a business?

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

Yeah, it's tough because the businesses are all highly integrated in the core infrastructure. Every time you take it out, you don't see a proportionate reduction in the fixed cost, and that's what we always struggle with. I think we need to take decisions that are creating the right portfolio to drive back quickly to sustainable mid-single-digit growth in the Capital Markets business. We probably have to take some choices on lower growth products and address the cost structure appropriately. It is tough to make it work. They all will have leakage, but we just got to work through that.

Will Nance
Will Nance
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Got it. Thanks for taking the questions, guys.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bryan Bergin with TD Cowen. You may proceed.

Bryan Bergin
Bryan Bergin
Analyst at TD Cowen

Hi. Good morning. Appreciate you taking the questions here. My first one's just a clarification on the Capital Markets view. To offset the trading in the asset services headwind, you mentioned an expectation of lending contributing to offset that. With the 1Q weakness in the loan syndication areas expected to reverse, or are you holding that constant at lower 1Q levels? For the rebased 2026 outlook, I think you mentioned an assumed acceleration in 4Q. If that's the case, is that just based on lapping comps or something else you have visibility to?

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

You go ahead.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

The acceleration in 4Q, I think is a more general comment across all of Capital Markets, that you start lapping the attrition, so that is less of a pull-down, and there's more of a contribution from sales sold earlier in the year. That's where the acceleration is coming from, and we've pretty good line of sight to it. What we said about 2027 is, in our remarks, is we're not counting on a rebound on the lending business. Those businesses that were small businesses that were impacted by the volatility of interest rates. That's the only comment. I think in general, if you look back over time, lending was a huge contributor to the overall growth rate, and the overall growth rate in lending is down in the current year.

James Kehoe
CFO at FIS

It has pulled down versus the long-term trend rate, the business quite a bit.

Bryan Bergin
Bryan Bergin
Analyst at TD Cowen

Got it. Okay, understood. My follow-up, just as it relates to AI productivity, can you comment on your progress adopting AI internally, particularly with efficiencies in engineering and customer support? Just any KPIs you can share as far as resource intensity, product velocity, things like that.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

Yeah. We're at beginning innings. That being said, we've been really focused on productivity in general, and you can see that really coming through as we've expanded margins on a year-over-year basis. We're using our cost programs, plus AI. What I would say is, we've leaned in hard to AI in 2026. We gave some of the stats on slide nine, one and a half to two times throughput. We're seeing in AI engineering 30% fewer defects. We're certainly getting a more productive and better quality technology organization. In the servicing side of things, we have put in some agentic capabilities that have allowed us to take our manual tickets down by 70% and our triage time down by 75%.

Stephanie Ferris
Stephanie Ferris
CEO and President at FIS

I think at this point, yes, it is driving productivity, but probably more importantly, it's driving a better client experience as well as faster product delivery for our clients. While we feel like AI is a great opportunity for us internally, we focus on it being productive as well as creating a better client outcome and client experience, and we think we're seeing both of those. That's an unlock I think we'll expect to see as we go into 27 and 28. Pretty excited about what we can do here.

Bryan Bergin
Bryan Bergin
Analyst at TD Cowen

Okay. Very good. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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