Fiserv Q2 2026 revenue fell 4% to $5.29B and GAAP EPS fell 37% to $1.17 as high-margin license and data sales, Argentina fees and margins all shrank; a new CEO cut 2026 guidance to -1% to 0% organic growth and $7.20-$7.40 adjusted EPS.
Revenue
$5.3B
-4.1% YoY
Net income
$627M
-38.9% YoY
Diluted EPS
$1.17
-37.1% YoY
Operating margin
19.2%
Overview
Fiserv's second quarter of 2026 (the three months to June 30) is still a business shrinking, and one being rebuilt under a new chief executive. Revenue fell 4.1% to $5.29 billion. GAAP operating income, meaning profit from running the business before interest and tax under standard accounting rules, dropped 40% to $1.02 billion. Diluted earnings per share (EPS, profit divided across every share including those from stock awards) fell 37% to $1.17. The 10-Q gives three reasons: less of the very profitable one-off license and "data and analytics" sales, higher personnel and technology costs, and $187 million of spending on the company's "One Fiserv" turnaround program.
Management also changed. Michael Lyons, CEO since 2025, whose team launched the One Fiserv plan in Q3 2025, resigned on June 12, 2026 (8-K filed June 15). Takis Georgakopoulos, previously Co-President and head of Merchant and Technology and before that JPMorgan's global head of payments, took over on June 14. With the Q2 results on August 6 the company cut its 2026 outlook again (see Guidance below).
Key metrics
Metric
Q2 2026
Q2 2025
YoY Change
Total revenue
$5,292M
$5,516M
-4.1%
Operating income (GAAP)
$1,015M
$1,696M
-40.2%
Operating margin (GAAP)
19.2%
30.7%
-11.5 pts
Net income attributable to Fiserv
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*Non-GAAP figures from the company's Q2 earnings release (8-K Exhibit 99.1, August 6, 2026), not from the 10-Q. "Organic" revenue removes currency swings, acquisitions, divestitures and postage that Fiserv passes straight through to clients. It is the company's preferred measure of underlying growth.
First half of 2026: revenue $10.32 billion (-3.1%), net income attributable to Fiserv $1.20 billion (-36.2%), diluted EPS $2.24 (-33.3%), GAAP operating margin 18.7% (vs. 29.0%). The release puts first-half organic revenue at -4% and adjusted EPS at $3.63 (-21%).
Segments: both businesses shrank, Financial Solutions by more
Segment (Q2)
Revenue
YoY
Organic growth*
Operating margin
Year-ago margin
Merchant Solutions
$2,608M
-1%
-1%
30.0%
34.6%
Financial Solutions
$2,355M
-8%
-8%
38.7%
48.7%
Corporate & Other
$329M
+3%
n/a
operating loss $678M
operating loss $462M
*Organic figures from the earnings release.
Merchant Solutions (payment acceptance for businesses, including the Clover point-of-sale and business-management platform) lost $36 million of revenue. The 10-Q names the main cause as a $45 million drop in "anticipation revenue" in Argentina, caused by lower inflation and interest rates. Anticipation revenue is what Fiserv earns by paying Argentine merchants their card receipts early, in return for a fee. That $45 million is more than the segment's whole $36 million decline, so outside Argentina Merchant revenue grew slightly. Lower hardware revenue and lower data-and-analytics sales also weighed. Small Business volume growth, "including from our Clover POS and business management platform", partly offset those declines. By sub-unit, Small Business (where Clover sits) cut about 1 point from segment growth, Processing cut about 1 point, and Enterprise was flat. For the first half, the Argentina drag was $72 million.
On Clover specifically: neither the 10-Q nor the earnings release gives a Clover revenue figure or Clover gross payment volume (the dollar value of card payments processed) for the quarter. We therefore can't report those numbers here, and "Small Business volume growth" is the only Clover-related growth the filing describes. That gap matters. An amended securities class action filed June 12, 2026 alleges that Fiserv's past statements about Clover's growth and about Argentina's contribution to organic growth were misleading (class period February 2024 to October 28, 2025).
Financial Solutions (the banking side: account processing for banks and credit unions, debit and credit card processing, digital payments) fell 8%, a $197 million drop. Issuing cut about 4 points from segment growth and Digital Payments and Banking about 2 points each. The 10-Q attributes the decline to "lower data and analytics sales and license revenue", mostly in Digital Payments and Issuing. These are lumpy sales with almost no extra cost, so losing them cuts deeply into profit. The segment's operating margin (the share of revenue left after running the business, before interest and tax) fell 10 points, from 48.7% to 38.7%, with higher personnel costs as the other named cause.
Where the margin went
The 10-Q breaks down how much each cost pressure raised total expenses as a share of revenue in Q2. Revenue itself fell, so part of each effect is weaker sales rather than higher spending:
Driver
Impact on expenses as % of revenue (Q2)
Personnel costs "to support the client experience"
~+5.8 pts
One Fiserv transformation program
~+3.5 pts
Data processing / technology infrastructure
~+2.8 pts
Higher payments to distribution partners (within SG&A)
~+1.3 pts
Product gross margin also fell sharply. Cost of product rose to 68.9% of product revenue from 57.3%, as higher personnel costs combined with the loss of high-margin license and data sales. Product revenue fell 17% to $1.0 billion.
GAAP vs. adjusted. The release's adjusted operating margin of 31.8% leaves out $187 million of One Fiserv transformation costs, $40 million of severance (redundancy pay), $23 million of merger and integration costs and $315 million of amortization of intangible assets from past acquisitions. Merchant and Financial segment margins need no adjustment, so the adjusted numbers there match GAAP exactly. Even on the company's preferred basis, margin fell 7.8 points, which is a real decline and not an accounting effect. The release describes the One Fiserv costs as a "multi-year transformation initiative", and they are large ($329 million in the first half). About $48 million in Q2 was retention pay and stock awards for employees, which shows how much the turnaround costs to keep staff in place.
No impairments this quarter. No goodwill write-down was recorded. The 10-Q notes the company ran an extra goodwill test at December 31, 2025 because of "a significant decline in its stock price" and found no impairment. The year-ago quarter included a $16 million impairment within results from unconsolidated affiliates and a $39 million one-day loss from the April 2025 Argentine peso devaluation.
One-offs that flattered or hurt net income
+$154 million gain on early debt extinguishment. In June, Fiserv bought back $1.3 billion face value of its 5.150% 2027 and 4.400% 2049 notes for $1.2 billion in a tender offer (an offer to buy bonds back from holders), plus $28 million more on the open market. Retiring debt for less than face value produces a book gain. Adjusted EPS strips it out ($0.20 per share, net of a $22 million related hedge loss booked in interest expense). Without it, GAAP profit would have fallen considerably more than 39%.
Argentina currency remeasurement: a $30 million foreign-exchange loss vs. $46 million a year earlier, in other expense.
Tax rate: 20.2% vs. 19.0%. The first half's 13.2% rate was pulled down by a $293 million Q1 tax benefit, which is why first-half net income fell less than operating income.
Cash, buybacks and debt
Operating cash flow: $2.08 billion in the first half vs. $2.31 billion (-10%), which the 10-Q attributes to lower profitability. Capital spending rose 17% to $956 million (about 9% of revenue). The release's free cash flow (cash left after capital spending, on the company's adjusted definition) was $1.36 billion vs. $1.55 billion.
Buybacks nearly stopped: 1.7 million shares for ~$100 million in Q2, vs. 12.2 million shares for $2.2 billion a year earlier ($300 million vs. $4.4 billion year-to-date). Diluted share count is down 3.4% year on year (533.7M vs. 552.7M), mostly from last year's buybacks. That lifts EPS by roughly that amount and partly hides the profit decline.
Debt: total debt (short-term plus long-term) fell to about $27.9 billion from $29.0 billion at year-end. The company sold EUR 1.0 billion of new 2030 and 2034 notes and used the proceeds, commercial paper (short-term corporate borrowing) and cash to retire the more expensive bonds. It also raised $201 million from sale-leasebacks of facilities (selling buildings and renting them back) and $152 million from selling merchant cash-advance receivables, "primarily used to pay down indebtedness". Most of the debt is fixed-rate senior notes ($24.5 billion principal). The $2.0 billion 3.200% note due July 2026 was classified as long-term because Fiserv intends to refinance it.
Portfolio pruning: the student loan servicing business is held for sale (closing expected Q3 2026). In August Fiserv formed the MoneyPass Group joint venture, in which it keeps 49%, covering its MoneyPass ATM network, ATM managed services and Cash Intelligence.
Takeaway: The Q2 decline is mostly lost high-margin revenue (license and data sales, Argentine early-payment fees) combined with rising costs. It is not only turnaround spending. Even after stripping out the One Fiserv program, severance and acquisition amortization, operating margin fell almost 8 points and adjusted EPS fell 26%. The GAAP result was also helped by a $154 million bond-buyback gain. The core segments, and not Corporate, are where the profit went: Financial Solutions' margin fell 10 points.
Guidance and outlook
With the Q2 release, Fiserv cut its 2026 outlook, three months after affirming it:
2026 outlook
May 5, 2026 (Q1 release, "affirmed")
August 6, 2026 (Q2 release)
Organic revenue growth
+1% to +3%
-1% to 0%
Adjusted EPS
$8.00 to $8.30
$7.20 to $7.40
The new EPS midpoint ($7.30) is about 10% below the old one ($8.15). First-half adjusted EPS was $3.63, so the range needs $3.57–$3.77 in the second half, roughly the same as the first. First-half organic revenue was -4%, and a full-year figure of -1% to 0% requires organic growth to turn positive in the second half. The organic range sits above the outlook for GAAP revenue (-1.5% to -0.5%) mainly because divested businesses are excluded from the organic comparison (about +1 point in the release's reconciliation).
Management's case is about volumes and recurring revenue. CEO Georgakopoulos pointed to "volume growth" and a "durable" recurring revenue base. CFO Paul Todd said the company is "reiterating our expected medium-term growth rates", but the release doesn't restate those rates. The two filings don't describe the 2025 outlook reset itself. The 10-Q only notes the extra goodwill test after the stock fell in Q4 2025 and the class action covering statements up to October 28, 2025. The One Fiserv plan launched in Q3 2025 has five parts: serve existing clients better and sell them more, build Clover into the leading small-business platform, develop embedded finance and stablecoin products, use AI to cut operating costs, and allocate capital with discipline.
Our read: two things need to happen in the second half for the lower guidance to hold. First, the high-margin license and data-and-analytics sales must stop falling. Second, the Argentina comparison must ease. The filing gives no timeline for either. Leadership is also still changing: the President left on July 7 (Financial Solutions is under interim leaders), and the Chief Legal Officer is leaving September 30. With little disclosure on Clover and buybacks cut from $2.2 billion to $0.1 billion a quarter, EPS gets less help from a shrinking share count. Near-term results will therefore depend on the underlying business. The Q3 report is the first full quarter under the new CEO and the first test of whether the reset guidance was set low enough.
Source: Fiserv Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (filed August 7, 2026). Non-GAAP measures and outlook from the Q2 2026 earnings release (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1, August 6, 2026) and the Q1 2026 earnings release (May 5, 2026). Leadership changes from Forms 8-K filed June 15, July 7 and September 22, 2026.