Item 1. Business

Overview

Fiserv, Inc. is a leading global provider of financial services technology. We are publicly traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market and part of the S&P 500 Index. We serve clients around the globe, including banks, credit unions, other financial institutions and merchants. We provide account processing systems; electronic payments processing products and services, such as electronic bill payment and presentment services, account-to-account transfers, person-to-person payments, debit network solutions, debit card processing and services, general purpose credit, retail private label and commercial credit card processing and services, and payments infrastructure services; internet and mobile banking systems; and related services, including card and print personalization services, item processing and source capture services, loan origination and servicing products, stored value network solutions and fraud and risk management products and services. We also provide retail point-of-sale (“POS”) merchant acquiring and e-commerce services as well as next-generation offerings such as mobile payment services, and our cloud-based Clover® line of payment solutions and related applications. Most of the services we provide are necessary for our clients to operate their businesses and are, therefore, non-discretionary in nature. We service our global client base by working among our geographic teams across various regions: the United States and Canada; Europe, Middle East and Africa; Latin America; and Asia Pacific.

In 2019, we had $10.2 billion in total revenue, $1.6 billion in operating income and $2.8 billion of net cash provided by operating activities from continuing operations. Processing and services revenue, which in 2019 represented 84% of our total revenue, is primarily generated from account- and transaction-based fees under multi-year contracts that generally have high renewal rates. We have operations and offices located both within the United States (the “U.S.” or “domestic”) and outside of the U.S. (“international”) with revenues from domestic and international products and services as a percentage of total revenue as follows for the years ended December 31:

		2019				2018				2017
Total revenue		$	10,187			$	5,823			$	5,696
Domestic		88		%		94		%		95		%
International		12		%		6		%		5		%

We have grown our business by developing highly specialized product and service enhancements, extending our capabilities geographically and through innovation, welcoming new clients, selling additional products and services to existing clients and acquiring businesses that complement ours, all of which have enabled us to deliver a wide range of integrated products and services and have created new opportunities for growth.

We originally incorporated in Delaware in 1984 and reincorporated as a Wisconsin corporation in 1992. Our headquarters are located at 255 Fiserv Drive, Brookfield, Wisconsin 53045, and our telephone number is (262) 879-5000.

Our operations are comprised of the First Data segment, the Payments and Industry Products (“Payments”) segment and the Financial Institution Services (“Financial”) segment.

First Data

On July 29, 2019, we completed the acquisition of First Data Corporation (“First Data”), a global leader in commerce-enabling technology and solutions for merchants, financial institutions and card issuers. The businesses in our First Data segment primarily provide merchant acquiring, e-commerce, mobile commerce and other business solutions at the point-of-sale to businesses of all sizes and types; credit card and loan account processing, commercial payments, customer communications, plastics solutions, customer service and other products to support issuers; and a range of network solutions and security, risk and fraud management solutions to business and financial institution clients, including U.S. debit card processing, our STAR® network, stored value commerce solutions (both closed-loop and open-loop), and our suite of security and fraud products and services. The businesses in the First Data segment are subject to a modest level of seasonality, with the first quarter experiencing the lowest level of revenue and the fourth quarter experiencing the highest level of revenue. Our products and services in the First Data segment include:

Global Business Solutions (“GBS”)

The businesses within GBS provide a wide range of solutions to merchants around the world, including physical retail POS merchant acquiring and e-commerce services, next-generation offerings such as mobile payment services, our cloud-based Clover® POS operating system, which includes a marketplace for proprietary and third-party business applications, and check validation. We serve nearly six million business locations globally. We typically provide these services as part of a broader commerce-enabling solution to our business clients across three primary channels:

•	Retail POS - Physical businesses or storefront locations, such as retailers, supermarkets, restaurants and petroleum stations with brick and mortar facilities

•	Online POS (e-commerce) - Online businesses or website locations, such as retailers, digital content providers, and mobile application developers with Internet-based storefronts that can be accessed through a personal computer or a mobile device

•	Mobile POS - Physical businesses with remote or wireless storefront locations, such as retailers and service providers that use mobile devices to accept electronic payments

Revenues within GBS are primarily derived from processing credit and debit card transactions for merchants and other business clients and include fees for providing processing, loyalty and software services and sales or leases of POS devices. GBS revenues and earnings are impacted by the number of transactions and payment volume, the mix of consumer use of credit and debit cards and the size of the merchant or other business client.

Global Financial Solutions (“GFS”)

The businesses within GFS provide financial institutions, which include bank and non-bank issuers such as retailers with proprietary card portfolios, with a broad range of technology solutions that enable them to offer financial products and solutions to their customers. These solutions include general purpose credit, retail private label, commercial card and loan processing globally, as well as licensed financial software systems, such as our VisionPLUS processing application. Businesses within GFS also provide financial institutions with a suite of account services including card personalization and embossing, customer communications, professional services and customer servicing, including call center solutions and back-office processing. Globally, GFS revenues are diversified across financial institutions of various sizes and geographies and are typically generated on the basis of number of total and active accounts on file, volume of customer communications, volume of plastics issued or license fees.

Network & Security Solutions (“NSS”)

The businesses within NSS provide a range of network services and security, risk and fraud management products to business and financial institution clients in our GBS and GFS businesses, and independently to financial institutions, businesses, governments, processors and other clients. These products and services include our EFT network solutions (STAR® network and debit card processing), our stored value network solutions (Money Network® and gift solutions) and our security and fraud solutions (TransArmor® and TeleCheck®). The businesses within NSS also support our other digital strategies, including online and mobile banking, and our business supporting mobile wallets.

Payments

The businesses in our Payments segment provide financial institutions and other companies with the products and services required to process electronic payment transactions and to offer their customers access to financial services and transaction capability through digital channels. Financial institutions and other companies have increasingly relied on third-party providers for those products and services, primarily on an outsourced basis. This is driven by the increasing number of payment transactions being completed electronically as our clients’ customers seek the convenience of 24-hour digital access to their financial accounts. Within the Payments segment, we primarily provide electronic bill payment and presentment services, internet and mobile banking software and services, account-to-account transfers, person-to-person payment services, debit and credit card processing and services, payments infrastructure services and other electronic payments software and services. Our businesses in this segment also provide card and print personalization services, investment account processing services for separately managed accounts, and fraud and risk management products and services. Our products and services in the Payments segment include:

Electronic Payments

Our electronic payments business is comprised of electronic bill payment and presentment services and other electronic payment services for businesses and consumers, such as person-to-person payments, account-to-account transfers, and account

opening and funding. Our principal electronic bill payment and presentment product, CheckFree® RXP®, allows our clients’ customers: to manage household bills via an easy-to-use, online tool; to view billing and payment information; to pay and manage all of their bills in one place; and to complete same-day or next-day bill payments to a wide range of billers and others.

Our person-to-person payments and account-to-account services allow consumers a convenient way to send and receive money while offering financial institutions the opportunity to generate new transaction-based revenue, attract new accounts and increase loyalty among existing customers. Approximately 2,500 financial institutions have agreed to offer person-to-person payments services through Fiserv to their customers as of December 31, 2019. In addition to Fiserv’s own service, Popmoney®, we partner with Early Warning Services, LLC to offer a turnkey implementation of its Zelle® real-time person-to-person payments service. Our turnkey solution simplifies the implementation of Zelle by providing interface, risk management, alerting, settlement and other services to clients.

Digital Channels

Our principal digital consumer and business banking products are Architect™, Corillian Online®, Corillian® Business Online, Mobiliti™, Mobiliti Business™, and SecureNow™. Our Corillian product suite supports multiple lines of banking businesses and has been designed to be highly scalable to meet the evolving needs of our clients. This structure enables our clients to deploy new services by adding and integrating applications, such as electronic bill payment, person-to-person payments and personal financial management tools, to any internet connected point-of-presence. Our Mobiliti product suite provides a variety of mobile banking and payments services to our clients and their customers via mobile browser, downloadable application for smartphones and tablets, text message, and Amazon® Alexa voice banking. Our Architect product suite supports online, mobile and tablet banking for retail and small business customers on a single platform. Each of these suites enables customers to complete balance inquiries, view their transaction history, make bill payments, and transfer funds between accounts and other people. As of December 31, 2019, we had approximately 2,300 hosted Mobiliti clients. Our SecureNow product delivers real-time cybersecurity defense capability designed specifically for digital financial services and integrates industry-leading controls into a single platform, and is pre-integrated with key Fiserv digital assets, including Corillian Online, Architect and other Fiserv platforms for rapid deployment.

Biller Solutions

Our biller business provides electronic billing and payment services to companies that deliver bills to their customer base, such as utilities, telephone and cable companies, lending institutions, and insurance providers, enabling our biller clients to reduce costs, collect payments faster through multiple channels, increase customer satisfaction, and provide customers flexible, easy-to-use ways to view and pay their bills. Our clients’ customers access our electronic billing and payment systems by viewing or paying a bill through a financial institution’s bill payment application, using a biller’s website, mobile application, automated phone system or customer service representative, leveraging www.mycheckfree.com, or by paying in person at one of more than 30,000 nationwide walk-in payment locations operated by our agents. These diverse options allow our clients’ customers to view and pay bills wherever, whenever and however they feel most comfortable. Furthermore, because our biller clients are able to receive all of these services from us, we can eliminate the operational complexity and expense of supporting multiple vendor systems or in-house developed systems.

Card Services

Our card services business is a leader in electronic funds transfer services and provides a total payments solution through a variety of products and services. We provide thousands of financial institution clients with a full range of credit and debit processing services, including: ATM driving, tokenization, loyalty and reward programs, real-time person-to-person payments, customized authorization processing, gateway processing to payment networks, and risk management products. We own and operate the Accel® network, which serves more than 3,000 financial institutions with funds access at over 500,000 ATMs and which incorporates CardFree CashSM access as well as EMV™ chip and traditional magnetic stripe cards. Our Accel network POS support delivers comprehensive coverage of PIN and signature authentication support at physical and e-commerce merchants across the country. Our digital enablement capability provides our clients’ customers with mobile-based, customizable card management and alert tools that drive engagement and revenue for card issuers, and our risk management tools and portfolio management services are integrated with real-time fraud decisioning. In 2018, we acquired the debit card processing, ATM Managed Services, and MoneyPass® surcharge-free network of Elan Financial Services, a unit of U.S. Bancorp, enabling access to over 61,000 surcharge-free ATMs.

Output Solutions

Our output solutions business provides business communication products and services to clients across a wide variety of industries, including financial services, healthcare, retail, utilities, and travel and entertainment. Our products and services include: electronic document management through our electronic document delivery products and services; card manufacturing, personalization and mailing; statement production and mailing; design and fulfillment of direct mail services; forms distribution; laser printing and mailing; branded merchandise; and office supplies.

Risk Management and Other Solutions

Our risk management business provides financial and risk management products and services that deliver operating efficiencies and management insight that enable our clients to protect and grow their businesses. Our enterprise performance management and financial control offerings include budgeting and planning, financial accounting, and automated reconciliation and account certification tools to facilitate a robust assessment environment and efficient close process for our clients. These solutions are further complemented by fraud detection and mitigation through our predictive analytics service, Fraud Risk and Anti-Money Laundering Compliance Management. Our deposit liquidity solutions enable our clients to retain, monetize and grow their deposit account base while responding to increased demand for short-term liquidity. Our enterprise payments business also provides financial institutions with the infrastructure they need to process non-card-based electronic payments, including ACH, wire and instant payments, and to manage associated information flows. Clients may use the Dovetail payment platform applications on a licensed or hosted basis, and as an add-on to existing legacy technology or as a stand-alone comprehensive modern payments platform.

Investment Services

The investment services business provides technology products and services to financial service organizations, including broker dealers, registered investment advisors, banks, asset managers and insurance companies that deliver financial advice and managed account products to U.S. retail investors. The business’ primary product, the Unified Wealth Platform, is a real-time portfolio management, trading and reporting system used by some of the largest brokerage firms and asset managers in the U.S. offering managed accounts. On February 18, 2020, we completed the sale of a 60% interest in this business to a group of investors.

Financial

The businesses in our Financial segment provide financial institutions with the products and services they need to run their operations. By licensing software from third parties or outsourcing their processing requirements by contracting with third-party processors, financial institutions are typically able to reduce costs and enhance their products, services, capacity and capabilities. For example, the licensing of software reduces the need for costly technical expertise within a financial institution, and outsourcing processing operations reduces the infrastructure and other costs required to operate systems internally. Within the Financial segment, we provide financial institutions with account processing services, item processing and source capture services, loan origination and servicing products, cash management and consulting services, and other products and services that support numerous types of financial transactions. Many of the products and services that we sell are integrated with solutions from our Payments segment such as electronic bill payment and presentment, internet and mobile banking, debit processing and network services, and person-to-person payments. Our products and services in the Financial segment include:

Account Processing

We provide account servicing and management technology products and services to our depository institution clients, as well as a range of integrated, value-added banking products and services. Account processing solutions enable a financial institution to operate systems that process customer deposit and loan accounts, an institution’s general ledger, central information files and other financial information. These solutions also include extensive security, report generation and other features that financial institutions need to process transactions for their customers, as well as to facilitate compliance with applicable regulations. Although many of our clients contract to obtain a majority of their processing requirements from us, our software design allows clients to start with one application and, as needed, add applications and features developed by us or by third parties. We support a broad range of client-owned peripheral devices manufactured by a variety of vendors, which reduce a new client’s initial conversion expenses, enhance existing clients’ ability to change technology and broaden our market opportunity.

The principal account processing solutions used by our bank clients are Cleartouch®, DNA®, Precision®, Premier® and Signature®. The principal account processing solutions primarily used by our credit union clients are DNA, Portico®, Spectrum®, XP2®, DataSafe®, Galaxy®, CUnify™, CharlotteSM, OnCU®, CubicsPlus®, CUSA® and Reliance. The Signature and DNA solutions are available both domestically and internationally. Account processing solutions are offered primarily as an outsourced service for installation on client-owned or -hosted computer systems.

Item Processing

Through the Fiserv® Clearing Network, we provide check clearing and image exchange services. Other products and services include image archive with online retrieval, in-clearings, exceptions and returns, statements and fraud detection. We also provide consulting services, business operations services and related software products that promote change in deposit behavior to transition check capture from branch and teller channels to digital self-service deposit channels, including mobile, merchant and ATM.

Lending and Other Solutions

In 2018, we sold a majority interest of our Lending Solutions business. We currently maintain a minority interest in two joint ventures, one that offers the LoanServ™ mortgage and consumer loan servicing platform and another that offers automotive loan origination and servicing products. Other business solutions include products and services for ACH and treasury management, case management and resolution, and source capture optimization to the financial services industry. Our offerings include Immediate FundsSM, PEP+®, and our remote deposit capture solutions branded as Source Capture Solutions®.

Our Strategy

Our aspiration is to move money and information in a way that moves the world. Our purpose is to deliver superior value for our clients through leading technology, targeted innovation and excellence in everything we do. We are focused on operating businesses where we have: deep industry expertise that enables us to serve the market with high effectiveness; a strong competitive position, currently or via a clear path in the foreseeable future; long-term, trusted client relationships that are based on recurring services and transactions; differentiated solutions that deliver value to our clients through integration and innovation; and strong management to execute strategies in a disciplined manner. Consistent with this focus, we continue to operate our business in accordance with the following strategic framework:

•

Operational Effectiveness and Integration of First Data. We believe we can improve the quality of our client delivery while reducing our costs by using the opportunities created by our size and scale and by effectively integrating the operations of First Data. By streamlining our overall cost structure, including the rationalization of duplicate costs, we expect to meet or exceed planned cost synergies and improve the quality of products and services that we provide to our clients.

•	Portfolio Management. We expect to acquire businesses when we identify: a compelling strategic need, such as a product, service or technology that helps meet client demand; an opportunity to change industry dynamics; a way to achieve business scale; or similar considerations. We expect to divest businesses that are not in line with our market, product or financial strategies.

•	Client Relationship Value. We plan to increase the number and breadth of our client relationships by, among other actions: continuing to integrate our products and services; introducing new products and services that are aligned with market needs; combining products and services to deliver enhanced, integrated value propositions; and improving the quality of our client service and support.

•	Capital Discipline. We intend to make capital allocation decisions that offer the best prospects for our long-term growth and profitability, which may include, among other matters, internal investment, repayment of debt, repurchases of our own shares or acquisitions.

•	Innovation. We seek to be an innovation leader, utilizing our assets and capabilities to be at the forefront of our industry and enable our clients to deliver best-in-class results.

Servicing the Market

The financial technology industry is highly dynamic, with new innovations entering the market and driving the expectations of our clients globally. The markets for our solutions have specific needs and requirements, with strong emphasis placed by clients on quality, security, service reliability, timely introduction of new capabilities and features, flexibility and value. This requires us to continue our strong emphasis on solution development to meet and exceed the specific needs of our clients. We believe that our financial strength and decades of specialized market knowledge enable us to support our clients to meet their changing preferences. In addition, we believe that our focus on quality, innovation, client service and our commitment of substantial resources to training and technical support helps us to identify and fulfill the needs of our clients.

Product Development

To meet the changing technology needs of our clients, we continually develop, maintain and enhance our products and systems. Our development and technology operations apply the expertise of multiple teams to design, develop and maintain specialized processing systems. Our solutions are designed to meet the preferences and diverse requirements of the international, national, regional or local market-specific financial service environments of our clients. In developing our products, we use current software development principles, such as service-oriented architecture, to create efficiencies, and we stress interaction with and responsiveness to the needs of our clients.

Intellectual Property

We regard our software, transaction processing services and related products as proprietary, and we use a combination of patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws, internal security practices and employee and third-party non-disclosure agreements to protect our intellectual property assets. Our patents cover innovations relating to numerous financial software products and services, and we continue, where appropriate, to seek and secure patents with respect to our ongoing innovations. We believe that we possess all proprietary rights necessary to conduct our business.

Competition

The market for technology products and services in the financial industry is highly competitive. Our principal competitors include other vendors of financial services technology, data processing affiliates of large companies, and processing centers owned and operated as user cooperatives. Outside the U.S., our primary competitors include global and local IT product and services companies, as well as payment service providers and processors. We expect competition to continue to increase as new companies enter our markets and existing competitors expand their product lines and services. Some of these competitors possess substantially greater financial, sales and marketing resources than we do and have substantial flexibility in competing with us, including through the use of integrated product offerings and through pricing. Competitive factors for our business include product quality, security, breadth of features and functionality, integration with other product lines, global reach, multiple distribution channels, service reliability, timely introduction of new products and features, platform scalability and flexibility and value. We believe that we compete favorably in each of these categories. Additional information about competition in our segments is provided below.

First Data

The businesses in our First Data segment compete with merchant acquirers, including Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (“FIS”) and Global Payments Inc. (“Global Payments”), as well as with financial institutions that provide acquiring and processing services to businesses on their own, such as Paymentech, LLC (“Paymentech”) , Elavon Inc. (a subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp) and Barclaycard. In many cases, our alliance and commercial partners compete against each other. Additionally, payment networks such as Visa Inc. (“Visa”) and Mastercard Incorporated (“Mastercard”) are increasingly offering products and services that compete with our suite of merchant acquiring solutions. We also compete with card issuer processors, such as Global Payments, FIS and Worldline SA, the card issuer processing businesses of the global payment networks, such as Visa and Mastercard, as well as various software or custom designed solutions that some financial institutions use to perform these services in-house. We compete with networks such as Visa, Mastercard and Discover Financial Services, Inc. for debit network services, and with FIS for debit network and check verification and guarantee services.

Payments

The businesses in our Payments segment compete with a number of traditional and emerging competitors that provide a wide range of POS and non-POS payments solutions. Existing and potential financial institution and biller clients could also develop and use their own in-house systems instead of our products and services. In addition, many companies that provide solutions to the financial services industry are consolidating, creating larger competitors with greater resources and broader product lines.

Financial

Our products and services in the Financial segment compete in several different market segments and geographies, including with large, diversified software and service companies and independent suppliers of software products. Existing and potential financial institution clients could also develop and use their own in-house systems. In addition, we compete with vendors that offer similar transaction processing products and services to financial institutions, including Computer Services, Inc., Finastra Limited, FIS, Infosys Ltd., International Business Machines Corporation, Jack Henry and Associates Inc., NCR Corporation, Oracle Corporation, SAP SE and Temenos AG.

Government Regulation

Our operations, and the products and services that we offer, are subject to various U.S. federal, state and local regulation, as well as regulation outside the U.S., and to other rules, such as those promulgated by various payment networks and banking authorities. Failure to comply with these rules and regulations may result in the suspension or revocation of licenses or registrations, the limitation, suspension or termination of service and/or the imposition of civil and criminal penalties, including fines. In addition, we may be required, among other things, to make significant additional investments to comply with such rules and regulations, to modify our products or services or the manner in which they are provided, or to limit or change the amount or types of revenue we are able to generate.

The Dodd-Frank Act. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (“Dodd-Frank Act”) in the United States resulted in significant changes to the regulation of the financial services industry. Among other things, the Dodd-Frank Act established a new, independent regulatory agency known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) which is empowered to conduct rule-making and supervision related to, and enforcement of, “federal consumer financial laws,” some of which apply to products and services offered by our clients. The CFPB conducts direct examinations of, and has issued guidance that applies to, “supervised banks and nonbanks” as well as “supervised service providers” like us. Separately, pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act: debit interchange rates for card issuers operating in the United States with assets of $10 billion or more have been capped; debit payment card networks are banned from prohibiting an issuer from contracting with any other payment card network that may process an electronic debit transaction involving an issuer’s debit cards; card issuers and payment networks are prohibited from limiting the ability of merchants to direct the routing of debit card transactions over any network that can process the transaction; all debit card issuers in the United States are required to participate in at least two unaffiliated debit payment card networks; and network exclusivity arrangements are generally prohibited for prepaid card and healthcare debit card issuers. These Dodd-Frank Act regulations impact our card processing businesses and our clients’ ability to generate revenue.

Association and Network Rules. We are subject to rules of Mastercard, Visa, INTERAC, PULSE and other payment networks. In order to provide processing services, a number of our subsidiaries are registered with Visa and/or Mastercard as service providers for member institutions. A number of our subsidiaries outside the U.S. are direct members or associate members of Visa and Mastercard for purposes of conducting merchant acquiring. Various subsidiaries are also processor level members of numerous debit and electronic benefits transaction networks or are otherwise subject to various network rules in connection with processing services and other services we provide. As such, we are subject to applicable card association, network and national scheme rules that could subject us to fines or penalties. We are subject to network operating rules promulgated by the National Automated Clearing House Association relating to payment transactions processed by us using the Automated Clearing House Network and to various federal and state laws regarding such operations, including laws pertaining to electronic benefits transactions.

Financial Institution Regulations. Because a number of our businesses provide data processing services for financial institutions, we are subject to examination by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (“FFIEC”), which is a formal interagency body empowered to examine significant service providers to financial institutions. The member agencies of the FFIEC include the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the CFPB.

Under the Second Payment Services Directive (2015/2366/EC) in the European Union (PSD2), a number of our subsidiaries hold either payment institution licenses or electronic money licenses in the European Union member states in which such subsidiaries do business. As payment institutions or electronic money institutions, we are subject to regulation and oversight in the applicable European Union member state, which includes, among other obligations, a requirement to maintain specified regulatory capital.

One of our subsidiaries in the United Kingdom (“U.K.”) is regulated by the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority and is therefore required to comply with certain prudential, conduct of business and reporting requirements. The subsidiary arranges and advises on certain insurance contracts for the purpose of arranging insurance taken out by its issuer clients’ cardholders; engages in certain credit activities related to its issuer services and merchant terminal leasing businesses; engages in credit administration and debt collections activities on behalf of its card issuing clients through calls and correspondence with the cardholders; and operates a consumer hire business for the purpose of leasing POS devices to merchants. We own a subsidiary in Germany that is regulated as a processor for German debit card transactions. Failure to comply with the technical requirements set forth by the regulators may result in suspension or termination of services. Further, several subsidiaries provide services such as acquiring, issuing, factoring and/or settlement that make them subject to regulation by local financial services supervisory agencies, including the National Bank of Poland, the Reserve Bank of Australia, and the German Federal Financial Supervision Agency.

We own a subsidiary that engages in certain trust activities and is subject to regulation, examination, and oversight by the Division of Banking of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. However, because the subsidiary is not a “bank” under the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, as amended (“BHCA”), our affiliation with it does not cause us to be regulated as a bank holding company or financial holding company under the BHCA.

Privacy and Information Security Regulations. We provide services that are subject to various federal, state and foreign privacy laws and regulations which govern, among other things, the collection, processing, storage, use and disclosure of personal information. These laws contain a variety of obligations including the safeguarding of personal information, the provision of notices and use and disclosure rights. The regulations are complex and can provide for significant financial penalties for non-compliance.

Credit Reporting and Debt Collections Regulations. Our TeleCheck business is subject to the U.S. federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and various similar state laws. The collection business within TRS Recovery Services, Inc. (“TRS”) is subject to the U.S. federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and various similar state laws. TRS maintains licenses in a number of states in order to engage in collection in those states. TeleCheck and TRS are also subject to regulation, supervision and examination from the CFPB. Additional regulations may be imposed in the future, including laws regulating activities with respect to current or emerging technology such as automated dialers or pre-recorded messaging or calls to cellular phones, which could impair the collection by TRS of returned checks and those purchased under TeleCheck’s guarantee services. Moreover, reducing or eliminating access to or the use of certain information or proscribing the maintenance or use of consumer databases could reduce the effectiveness of TeleCheck’s risk management tools or otherwise increase its costs of doing business. In addition, several of our subsidiaries are subject to comparable local laws regarding collection activities and obtaining credit reports.

Unfair Trade Practice Regulations. We and our clients are subject to various federal, state and foreign laws prohibiting unfair or deceptive trade practices. Various regulatory enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and state attorneys general, have authority to take action against parties that engage in unfair or deceptive trade practices or violate other laws, rules and regulations. If we process payments for a client in violation of laws, rules and regulations, we would be subject to enforcement actions and incur losses and liabilities that may impact our business. For example, TeleCheck and TRS are subject to a consent decree with the FTC which, among other items, addresses the timeliness of certain actions that they take.

Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Bribery, and Sanctions Regulations. We are subject to anti-money laundering laws and regulations, including the Bank Secrecy Act (the “BSA”). Among other things, the BSA requires money services businesses (such as money transmitters, issuers of money orders and official checks and providers of prepaid access) to develop and implement anti-money laundering programs. In the European Union, our global solutions businesses are subject to various laws implementing European anti-money laundering legislation.

We are subject to anti-corruption laws and regulations, including the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) and similar laws outside of the United States, that prohibit the making or offering of improper payments to foreign government officials and political figures. The FCPA has a broad reach and requires maintenance of appropriate records and adequate internal controls to prevent and detect possible FCPA violations.

We are subject to certain economic and trade sanctions programs that are administered by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), which prohibit or restrict transactions to or from or dealings with specified countries, governments, individuals and entities that are specially-designated nationals of those countries, narcotics traffickers and terrorists or terrorist organizations. Other group entities may be subject to additional local sanctions requirements in other relevant jurisdictions.

Similar anti-money laundering, counter terrorist financing and proceeds of crime laws apply to movements of currency and payments through electronic transactions and to dealings with persons specified in lists maintained by the country equivalents to OFAC lists in several other countries and require specific data retention obligations to be observed by intermediaries in the payment process. Our businesses in those jurisdictions are subject to those data retention obligations.

Money Transmission and Payment Instrument Licensing and Regulations. We are subject to various U.S. federal, state and foreign laws and regulations governing money transmission and the issuance and sale of payment instruments, including some of our prepaid products. In the U.S., most states license money transmitters and issuers of payment instruments. Many states exercise authority over the operations of our services related to money transmission and payment instruments and, as part of this authority, subject us to periodic examinations. Many states require money transmitters, issuers of payment instruments and

their agents to comply with federal and state anti-money laundering laws and regulations and often require the licensee to maintain certain levels of net worth.

Communications Laws. We are subject to various federal and state laws that govern telephone calls and the issuance of text messages to clients and consumers in the U.S. as well as to regulations that impose requirements on marketing emails sent to U.S residents. Our international subsidiaries are subject to equivalent laws in applicable jurisdictions.

Indirect Regulatory Requirements. A number of our clients are subject to various regulations and compliance obligations that do not apply directly to us but impact the services that we provide to our clients. To remain competitive, we have expended, and expect to expend in the future, significant resources to develop and update our products and services to assist our clients to meet various compliance obligations. In addition, independent auditors annually review many of our operations to provide internal control evaluations for our clients and their auditors.

Employees

At December 31, 2019, we employed over 44,000 employees on a full-time basis. Approximately 16,000 of our employees are employed outside of the U.S., with a small percentage of those employees being represented by local unions and works councils. None of our employees in the U.S. are represented by any labor organization. The service nature of our business makes our employees an important corporate asset. Although the market for qualified personnel is competitive, we have not experienced significant difficulty with hiring or retaining our staff of top industry professionals.

Available Information

Our website address is www.fiserv.com. We are not including the information provided on our website as a part of, or incorporating it by reference into, this Annual Report on Form 10-K. We make available free of charge (other than an investor’s own internet access charges) through our website our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to these reports, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish such material to, the Securities and Exchange Commission.