The news: Western Alliance Bank will offer Fiserv’s point-of-sale (POS) system, Clover, and other commerce solutions to its business clients, per a press release.

The agent bank partnership is Fiserv’s largest tie-up to date by asset size and gives the payment provider valuable exposure to the western US.

How we got here: Clover has been at the center of Fiserv’s dramatic fall from grace in the eyes of its investors—as of Tuesday, the stock is down more than 50% from Oct 28, the day before Fiserv released its Q3 earnings miss and its downward-revised forecasts related to client backlash from what they called excessive Clover fees.

Before Clover became a stock liability, it was a revenue powerhouse. In Q1 2025, Fiserv’s merchant solutions revenues rose 5%. Financial solutions revenues grew 6%. Clover’s payments volume grew 8%. But Clover’s revenues catapulted 27% YoY. By Q2, investors were already raising red flags.

Implications for POS providers: Western Alliance could be a strong distribution channel for Clover—with $90 billion in assets, the agent bank works with both SMBs and big corporations. As a trusted bank for these enterprises, it could convince them to transition to Clover.

But distribution alone won’t be enough for Fiserv to patch over its Clover-related issues. Getting its POS tools in businesses’ hands through an agent bank could crimp Clover’s revenues even more. More importantly, Fiserv needs to rebuild brand equity in a fiercely competitive arena—staving off the likes of Adyen, Block, and sector-specific providers like Slice and Toast.

POS providers can improve their strategic positioning by catering to businesses’ most pressing needs: A majority of SMBs say they need help increasing marketing (59%), managing inventory (52%), and expanding into new business lines (52%), per a September Marqeta report. Providers need to highlight their capabilities in all of these fields to gain the advantage.