The news: Fiserv’s organic revenues decreased 4% in Q1 2026, per its earnings.

• Merchant solutions declined 1% YoY.
• Financial solutions decreased 6% YoY.
• And banking revenues declined 6% YoY.

How we got here: Fiserv is still executing its One Fiserv strategy, initiated in late 2025. 

The payment provider suffered a major setback in Q3 2025 thanks in part to the company’s exposure in Argentina and to past Clover billing practices.

Fiserv said pillar 4 of Fiserv One is called Project Elevate, which focuses on maximizing efficiencies through AI—suggesting layoffs and other cost-cutting decisions may be on the horizon.

What’s working? Fiserv’s new Clover initiatives seem to be connecting with new breakthrough industries.

• Clover revenues increased 6% YoY.
• Clover TPV grew over 9% YoY.
• And Clover’s value-added services rose 18% YoY, making up 27% of Clover’s total revenues.

These boosts may be connected to recent product expansions with PracticePay, aimed at healthcare and professional services providers: Healthcare outlets outperformed Fiserv’s existing base clients by double digits.

What’s not working? CEO Michael Lyons acknowledged that “core bank account and revenue attrition remains above our long-term trend” during the company’s earnings call. This suggests that the reputational damage Fiserv took on, including multiple lawsuits, is still hurting client relationships. However, Lyons noted that high-impact client incidents are down 60% YoY.

Implications for payment providers: Fiserv’s Project Elevate mirrors strategies at Block, Klarna, and PayPal, all of which have turned to AI to justify layoffs. 

However, providers should take note that the ensuing reversal after Klarna pivoted to all-AI customer service can come at huge reputational cost. Maintaining smaller, specialized human customer service representatives for high-emotion moments can do more for customers than AI can currently provide.

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