Item 1. Business

Overview

Fiserv, Inc. is a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions. 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 merchants, banks, credit unions, other financial institutions and corporate clients. We help clients achieve best-in-class results through a commitment to innovation and excellence in areas including account processing and digital banking solutions; card issuer processing and network services; payments; e-commerce; merchant acquiring and processing; and the Clover® cloud-based point-of-sale and business management platform. 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 2021, we had $16.2 billion in total revenue, $2.3 billion in operating income and $4.0 billion of net cash provided by operating activities from continuing operations. Processing and services revenue, which in 2021 represented 82% 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:

(In millions)						2021						2020						2019
Total revenue						$	16,226					$	14,852					$	10,187
Domestic						86		%				87		%				88		%
International						14		%				13		%				12		%

We have grown our business organically and through acquisitions, by signing new clients, expanding the products and services we provide to existing clients, offering new and enhanced products and services developed through innovation and acquisition, and extending our capabilities geographically, all of which have enabled us to deliver a wide range of integrated products and services and created new opportunities for growth. Our operations are comprised of the Merchant Acceptance (“Acceptance”) segment, the Financial Technology (“Fintech”) segment and the Payments and Network (“Payments”) segment.

Our headquarters are located at 255 Fiserv Drive, Brookfield, Wisconsin 53045, and our telephone number is (262) 879-5000.

Acceptance

The businesses in our Acceptance segment provide a wide range of commerce-enabling solutions and serve merchants of all sizes around the world. Acceptance solutions enable businesses to securely accept consumers’ electronic payment transactions online or in-person. Payment transactions include credit, debit, stored-value and loyalty payments, whether at a physical point-of-sale (“POS”) device, a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet, or an e-commerce transaction over the internet.

The services in this segment include POS merchant acquiring and digital commerce services; mobile payment services; security and fraud protection products; CaratSM, our omnichannel commerce ecosystem; Clover, our cloud-based point-of-sale and business management platform; and Clover Connect, our independent software vendor (“ISV”) platform. We distribute the products and services in the global Acceptance businesses through a variety of channels, including direct sales teams, strategic partnerships with independent sales agents, independent sales organizations (“ISOs”), ISVs, financial institutions, and other strategic partners in the form of joint venture alliances, revenue sharing alliances (“RSAs”), and referral agreements. Merchants, financial institutions and distribution partners in the Acceptance segment are frequently clients of our other segments.

Carat

Carat is our global omnichannel commerce ecosystem designed to enable large businesses to accept more payments, engage more customers, and optimize commerce. Carat helps clients to do everything from accepting e-commerce payments to enabling new consumer experiences such as buy online, pickup in store or online order ahead. Through a single integration, a variety of payment and commerce solutions can be accessed, including global payment acceptance, payments optimization,

network routing, fraud detection, online electronic benefits transfers and digital payouts. By offering this wide variety of services, Carat helps clients create more revenue, reduce their cost of payments, reach more consumers, and enable innovative omnichannel transactions such as voice-enabled commerce and payments.

Clover

Built for small and mid-sized businesses (“SMBs”), our cloud-based Clover POS platform is a comprehensive business-management solution that enables businesses to maximize their operating efficiencies, while allowing their customers to pay using a debit or credit card or via mobile payment options. The Clover platform includes hardware and software technology necessary to enable SMB merchants to accept payments, process transactions, provide online ordering, maintain an e-commerce presence, and generate consumer loyalty through Clover’s customer engagement tools. Clover is one of the largest open architecture platforms of commerce-enabling solutions and applications in the world. By integrating next-generation hardware and software applications, Clover has also become a leader in enabling omnichannel commerce solutions for SMBs, with touchless commerce through QR code-based payments, online ordering solutions, or a virtual terminal. Clover solutions also help small business owners gain faster access to capital through advanced access to receivables.

Distribution Channels and Partnerships

Acceptance businesses distribute solutions and services through direct sales teams, as well as partnerships with hundreds of indirect non-bank sales forces, including independent sales agents, ISOs, ISVs, value-added resellers (“VARs”), and payment service providers (“PSPs”). Partnerships with ISOs, ISVs, VARs and PSPs provide specialized sales capabilities and integrated merchant technology solutions to support our partners, help them grow their business and manage their portfolios. Partner technology tools enable real-time access to portfolio activity and pricing management. We also provide marketing services, data analytics and other tools that enable partners to further expand their businesses through local communities, e-commerce channels, and specific industry verticals.

In addition, the businesses in our Acceptance segment leverage powerful sales capabilities for hundreds of financial institution and non-financial institution partners to distribute their products and solutions through strategic arrangements including joint venture alliances, RSAs, and referral agreements. These strategic alliances combine our commerce-enabling technology, processing capabilities and management expertise with the distribution capabilities, footprint and customer relationships of our partners.

Fintech

The businesses in our Fintech segment provide financial institutions around the world with the technology solutions they need to run their operations, including products and services that enable financial institutions to process customer deposit and loan accounts and manage an institution’s general ledger and central information files. As a complement to the core account processing functionality, the businesses in the global Fintech segment also provide digital banking, financial and risk management, professional services and consulting, item processing and source capture, and other products and services that support numerous types of financial transactions. Certain of the businesses in the Fintech segment provide products or services to corporate clients to facilitate the management of financial processes and transactions. Many of the products and services offered in the Fintech segment are integrated with products and services provided by our other segments.

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 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 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 depository institution clients are Cleartouch®, DNA®, Precision®, Premier®, Signature® and Portico®. The DNA and Signature solutions are available both domestically and internationally. Account processing solutions are offered primarily as an outsourced service or can be installed on client-owned computer systems or those hosted by third parties.

Our account processing business also provides consulting services, business operations services and related software products that enable the transition of check capture from branch and teller channels to digital self-service deposit channels, including mobile, merchant and ATM. 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.

Financial and Risk Management Solutions

Our Financial and Risk Management Solutions business provides products and services that deliver operating efficiencies and management insight that enable our clients to protect, manage and grow their businesses. Our Digital Efficiency solutions include Frontier™ (a reconciliation product), Nautilus® (a content management product) and Prologue™ Financials, which combines enterprise performance management and financial control offerings to deliver budgeting, planning, financial accounting, and automated reconciliation and account certification tools to our clients. Our Deposit Liquidity solutions enable our clients to retain, monetize and grow their deposit account base while analyzing customer demand and providing for customer short-term liquidity. Our commercial payments solutions provide financial institutions with the infrastructure they need to process, route and settle non-card-based electronic payments, including Automated Clearing House (“ACH”), wire and instant payments, and to efficiently manage associated information flows. Clients may use our 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. These solutions are further complemented by fraud detection and mitigation through our Fraud and Financial Crime Risk Management solutions.

Digital Solutions

Our principal digital consumer and business digital banking platforms are AbilitiSM, Architect™, Corillian Online®, and Mobiliti™. Abiliti is our next-generation digital banking platform providing a single solution for consumers and businesses and serving as a gateway to our digital ecosystem. It is a cloud-based platform designed to deliver continuous innovation and new functionality to increase efficiency, engagement and insights for a digital-first experience. Architect is a premium open-architecture platform providing seamless online, mobile and tablet banking for retail and small business customers and offers extensive customizations and integrations to create unique digital experiences. Our Corillian platform supports multiple lines of banking for consumers and businesses and is designed to be highly scalable to meet the evolving needs of banks and credit unions, allowing clients to deploy new services through integrations of digital applications. Our Mobiliti platform provides a variety of mobile banking and payments services to our clients and their customers via mobile browser and a downloadable application for smartphones and tablets, designed for a mobile-first experience. Each of these solutions allows customers to complete balance inquiries and view their transaction history, and enables access to our digital ecosystem, including electronic bill payments, person-to-person digital payments, funds transfer between accounts and to other people, and personal financial management tools.

Enhancing our digital banking platform capabilities are our OriginateSM suite, SecureNow™, Credit SenseSM, and LinkLive. The Originate family, including Deposit Director, Loan Director and Mortgage Director, enables digital account opening and loan origination services supporting multi-channel strategies for financial institutions. This suite is designed to become a single point of origination that qualifies users across the range of digital opening and lending options. Our SecureNow product delivers real-time cybersecurity defense capability, integrating industry-leading controls into a single platform. Our Credit Sense solution helps customers instantly access and monitor credit scores and enables digital marketing offers. LinkLive is a unified, cloud-based multimedia communications solution that includes video communication, online chat and secure messaging, enabling customer engagement and customer servicing automation. Each of these applications are pre-integrated with key Fiserv digital platforms, including Abiliti, Architect, Corillian, Mobiliti and other solutions, for rapid deployment to improve digital experiences.

Payments

The businesses in our Payments segment provide financial institutions and corporate clients around the world with the products and services required to process digital payment transactions. This includes card transactions such as debit, credit and prepaid card processing and services; a range of network services, security and fraud protection products; card production and print services. In addition, the Payments segment businesses offer non-card digital payment software and services, including bill payment, account-to-account transfers, person-to-person payments, electronic billing, and security and fraud protection products. Clients of the global Payments segment businesses reflect a wide range of industries, including merchants, distribution partners and financial institution customers in our other segments.

Network and Debit Processing

Our network and debit processing business is a leader in electronic funds transfer services and provides a comprehensive payments solution through a variety of products and services. We provide financial institution clients with a full range of debit processing services, including ATM managed services and cash and logistics management; tokenization, loyalty and reward programs; customized authorization processing; gateway processing to payment networks; and risk management products. We own and operate the Accel®, MoneyPass® and STAR® networks, which serve financial institutions, providing access to funds at the point-of-sale and via ATMs, inclusive of CardFree CashSM access as well as via chip and traditional magnetic stripe cards. Our debit processing also provides a range of security, risk and fraud management solutions, which incorporate machine-learning-based predictive technology, that help financial institutions securely operate and grow their business by preventing fraud. Our networks’ POS support delivers comprehensive coverage of PIN and PIN-less authentication support at physical and e-commerce merchants domestically. CardHub, 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. Our risk management tools and portfolio management services are integrated with real-time fraud decisioning. In 2021, we introduced Credit Choice, a fully managed credit card issuing-as-a-service solution which allows community financial institutions to offer their customers a branded credit card that is fully integrated into their debit solutions without the operational burden of managing their own credit card portfolio.

Credit Processing

Our credit processing business provides solutions to financial institutions and other issuers of credit, such as banks, group service providers, retailers and consumer finance companies, to enable them to process transactions on behalf of their customers. Depending on the market and our clients’ needs, we deliver these solutions through our proprietary outsourced service platforms, software application licenses, or software-as-a-service hosted in the cloud. Our solutions in North America primarily use our proprietary OptisSM platform to provide transaction authorization and posting, account maintenance and settlement. Our VisionPLUS® software is used globally as both a processing solution and a licensed software solution that enables clients to process their own transactions, depending on the market. We also provide financial institutions with professional services and customer contact services, including call center solutions and back-office processing.

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. We provide various channels for clients to communicate, build relationships and maximize customer engagement and loyalty, while limiting costs of a personalized and integrated consumer experience. 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; and laser printing and mailing.

Digital Payments

Our digital payment solutions include person-to-person payments, account-to-account transfers and account opening and funding. Our person-to-person payments and account-to-account transfer 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. 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. Our Aggregation and Information Services products, including AllData® Aggregation, provide consumer-permissioned access to account and transaction data, enabling providers to build novel experiences for opening new accounts, planning for financial wellness, providing financial advice and more.

Bill Payment Solutions

Our bill payment solutions business provides electronic billing, payment and presentment services to our financial institution clients and to companies that deliver bills to their customers, such as utilities, telephone and cable companies, lending institutions, healthcare, and insurance providers. These services enable our 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 principal electronic bill payment and presentment product for financial and other institutions, CheckFree® RXP®, allows our clients’ customers to: manage household bills via an easy-to-use, online tool; view billing and payment information; pay and manage all of their bills in one place; and complete same-day or next-day bill payments to a wide range of billers and others. Our other biller 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, or by paying in-person at one of the many 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.

Prepaid Solutions

Our prepaid solutions include stored value cards offered by our Gift Solutions and Money Network® businesses. The Gift Solutions business provides end-to-end, omnichannel solutions to securely implement and manage gift card programs that help clients drive revenue, engagement and loyalty. These solutions include physical and digital gift card fulfillment, program management, e-commerce gift card storefronts, security and fraud protection, transaction processing services, incentive and rebate cards as well as reloadable and non-reloadable prepaid cards that may be used with a variety of mobile applications. The Money Network service simplifies payment distribution for organizations while reducing or eliminating expenses associated with issuing traditional paper checks. This service also provides consumers without bank accounts with fast, digital access to manage their money, including wages. Money Network solutions include Electronic Payroll Delivery, government disbursements, digital disbursements and corporate incentives as well as single-load and reloadable prepaid account options. Accountholders of the Money Network Electronic Payroll Delivery Service have access to a Money Network Card, Money Network Checks and a robust mobile app to manage their account anytime, anywhere.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic

Since early 2020, the world has been, and continues to be, impacted by the coronavirus (“COVID-19”) pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic, and various measures imposed by the governments of many countries, states, cities and other geographic regions to prevent its spread, have negatively impacted global economic and market conditions, including levels of consumer and business spending. Consequently, our operating performance, primarily within our merchant acquiring and payment-related businesses, which earn transaction-based fees, has been adversely affected, and may continue to be adversely affected, by the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Such uncertainty remains despite improving trends in global economic activity and market conditions. Additional information regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business can be found under the section titled “Recent Market Conditions” included within Part II, Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K and risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic can be found under Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors,” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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:

*•*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 delivering quality service and support for our clients.

• 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.

• Operational Effectiveness. We believe we can further improve the quality of our client delivery while reducing our costs by using the opportunities created by our size and scale.

*•*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.

• 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.

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 products and solutions are designed to meet the preferences and diverse requirements of the international, national, regional or local market-specific merchant and financial services 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.

Resources

Our business depends on a variety of resources to operate including products and services provided to us by third parties. For example, we rely on our human capital resources for product development (including product design and coding), sales, operations (including customer service, technology support, security and compliance) and management; access to financial and telecommunication networks; computers, servers, mainframes, microchips and other computer equipment; and Clover and other POS devices. We periodically review our resource requirements and sources, as well as our relationships with key vendors, to best meet the needs of our business including global sourcing efforts and alternate supplier resourcing. We believe we have access to the resources necessary for our current business needs. More information regarding supply chain risks can be found under the heading “Competitive and Business Risks*”* in the Risk Factors section of this report and our human capital resources can be found below under “Human Capital.”

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, employee confidentiality and assignment agreements, and third-party non-disclosure agreements to protect our intellectual property assets. Our patents cover innovations relating to numerous financial software and hardware 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 industries we serve is fragmented, highly competitive, and served by a multitude of large and small firms. Our principal competitors include other large, integrated providers of financial services technology and payment systems, data processing affiliates of large companies, processing centers owned or operated as user cooperatives, financial institutions, merchant acquirers, ISOs, ISVs, payments companies and payment network operators. Our competitors also include global and local IT product and services companies and payment service providers and processors. We expect competition to continue to increase as new companies enter our markets and existing competitors expand or consolidate their product lines and services. Some of these competitors possess substantial financial, sales and marketing resources and can compete with us in various ways, including through the use of integrated product offerings and through pricing and long-standing relationships. Depending on the product or service, competitive factors may include quality, security, innovation, breadth or novelty of features and functionality, client satisfaction, market opportunity, integration, reliability, agility, global reach, multiple distribution channels, service reliability and performance standards, 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.

Acceptance

Our Acceptance segment competes with merchant acquirers as well as with financial institutions that provide acquiring and processing services to businesses on their own. In many cases, our alliance and commercial partners, such as ISOs and ISVs, compete against each other. We also compete with merchant services providers, and in a number of international markets, our Acceptance segment competes with a growing number of local and regional providers. In addition, payment networks and large technology, media and other providers are increasingly offering products and services that compete with our suite of merchant acquiring solutions.

Fintech

Our products and services in the Fintech segment compete 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.

Payments

The businesses in our Payments segment primarily compete with businesses that offer consumer payment solutions and a number of payment and card issuer processors. In addition to traditional payments competitors, large technology, media and other emerging financial technology providers are increasingly seeking to provide alternative payment and financing solutions. Existing and potential financial institution and other corporate clients could also develop and use their own in-house systems or custom-designed solutions instead of our products and services.

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 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.

Financial Institution Regulations. Because a number of our businesses provide data processing services for financial institutions, we are subject to examination by the U.S. 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 Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the National Credit Union Administration, and 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. We are also subject to examination by the first three of these agencies which refer to themselves as the Federal Banking Agencies when acting together. A subsidiary that engages in trust activities is subject to regulation, examination and oversight by the Division of Banking of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies.

In the U.S., we are also subject to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which, among other things, caps debit interchange rates for certain card issuers; prohibits debit payment card networks from restricting card issuers from contracting with other payment card networks; prohibits card issuers and payment networks from restricting the ability of merchants to direct the routing of debit card transactions; requires all debit card issuers in the U.S. to participate in at least two unaffiliated debit payment card networks; and generally prohibits network exclusivity arrangements for prepaid card and healthcare debit card issuers. These regulations impact our card processing businesses and our clients’ ability to generate revenue.

A number of our subsidiaries hold payment institution licenses, electronic money licenses or similar licenses in the countries in which such subsidiaries do business. These subsidiaries are subject to regulation and oversight in the applicable countries, which may include, among other obligations, a requirement to maintain specified regulatory capital. In addition, several subsidiaries outside of the U.S. provide services such as merchant terminal leasing, debit processing, acquiring, issuing, factoring and settlement that make them subject to regulation by financial services supervisory agencies, including the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) in the United Kingdom (“U.K.”), the Federal Financial Supervision Agency in Germany, the National Bank of Poland, the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

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 Nacha relating to payment transactions processed by us using the ACH network and to various federal and state laws regarding such operations, including laws pertaining to electronic benefits transactions.

Privacy and Information Security Regulations. We provide services that are subject to various federal, state and foreign privacy laws and regulations, as well as association and network privacy rules, which govern, among other things, the collection, processing, storage, deletion, use and disclosure of personal information. These laws and rules contain a variety of obligations including the safeguarding of personal information, the provision of notices and use and disclosure rights. The regulations and rules are complex and evolving and can provide for significant penalties or the suspension or termination of our registrations or certifications for non-compliance.

In the U.S., we are subject to various federal and state privacy and security laws. The U.S. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”) requires financial institutions to explain their information sharing practices to their customers and to safeguard sensitive data. We are subject to the GLBA and have privacy and security obligations to our clients who are regulated by the GLBA. The U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) governs the use and disclosure of protected health information in healthcare treatment, payment and operations by covered entities. We are also subject to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Act, which empowers the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) to prohibit unfair and deceptive privacy practices. In addition to the FTC Act, the FTC is also responsible for overseeing and enforcing the privacy provisions over certain aspects of the GLBA and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), each of which is applicable to our businesses in certain circumstances. In 2021, the FTC issued a final rule amending the FTC’s GLBA Safeguards Rule that takes effect in December 2022 and applies to certain non-bank entities under FTC jurisdiction, and may require us to enhance our security measures in some of our operations. In addition, in 2021, the Federal Banking Agencies issued a final rule requiring “computer-security incident” notifications by banking organizations and bank service providers that takes effect in May 2022 and may require that we enhance our “computer-security incident” notifications for some of our operations.

We also have obligations under state laws, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act, which gives California consumers more control over the personal information businesses hold about them, as both a “business” and as a “service provider.” In addition, in 2021, Virginia and Colorado passed comprehensive privacy acts to govern the personal data of their residents. We are also subject to the separate security breach notification laws of each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

In the E.U., we are subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), a comprehensive approach to personal data protection with enforcement that can lead to penalties of up to the greater of twenty million Euro or four percent of a company’s consolidated global revenue. Following the U.K.’s exit from the E.U. Single Market and Customs Union on December 31, 2020, we are also subject to U.K. GDPR. There are numerous additional privacy laws and regulations that apply to our businesses around the world which can provide for significant penalties. Some of these data protection laws, including in the E.U., India, United Arab Emirates and China, impose requirements about data subject rights and security along with restricting the international transfer of personal data absent lawfully recognized transfer mechanisms, or in some cases, prohibits such transfer completely.

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.

Credit Reporting and Debt Collections Regulations. TeleCheck, our check acceptance business, is subject to FCRA and various similar state laws. The collection business within our subsidiary 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 and our U.K. subsidiary described above also holds FCA licenses for debt collection activities.

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 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 merchant or other client in violation of laws, rules and regulations, we could be subject to enforcement actions and incur losses and liabilities that may impact our business.

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. Our acquiring businesses outside the U.S. are subject to anti-money laundering laws and regulations in the countries where they operate. Our Money Network Financial, LLC subsidiary provides prepaid access for various open loop prepaid programs for which it is the program manager and therefore must meet the requirements of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

We are subject to anti-corruption laws and regulations, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) and similar laws outside of the U.S. such as the U.K. Bribery Act, 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 also subject to certain economic and trade sanctions programs that are administered by the U.S. 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, including 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.

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.

Human Capital

As of December 31, 2021, we had over 44,000 employees worldwide, approximately 18,000 of whom were employed outside the U.S. Successful execution of our talent management strategy depends on attracting, developing and retaining highly qualified employees at all levels of our organization. This includes creating a culture committed to diversity and inclusion and employee development, retention, engagement and well-being.

Development and Retention

We are committed to creating a high-performance culture that consistently delivers excellence for our clients and long-term value for our shareholders while providing a workplace experience for our employees that values leadership, innovation, diversity and collaboration. Our performance management process promotes differentiation based on contributions toward our strategic business objectives and overall success. Career development is an important part of our overall value proposition for employees. We provide employees with opportunities to grow, regardless of job level, within the organization including through targeted online learning, our Leading Women program designed to accelerate the professional growth of female top

talent, our Leading Fiserv program designed to develop critical leadership skills for frontline managers, and our Vision to Results leadership program focused on driving our One Fiserv approach to enterprise goals. We also focus on internal mobility and redeployment to retain talented employees and to optimize their opportunities for success.

Diversity and Inclusion

We are committed to cultivating a diverse, respectful and inclusive workplace. Our diversity and inclusion programs reflect our focus on:

• Advancing diversity at all levels across the organization, including increasing the representation of women and minorities in leadership positions, requiring consideration of diverse candidates for senior leadership positions, dedicating talent acquisition resources focused on hiring diverse individuals, providing career opportunities to the military community and deepening relationships with historically Black colleges and universities, industry networks, and military and veterans’ organizations;

• Promoting employee awareness through: education and participation in diversity and inclusion programs, such as inclusive leader assessment and coaching program to develop the competencies necessary to create an inclusive workplace; eight Employee Resource Groups (“ERGs”) with over 7,000 members for associates to connect, support each other and elevate their professional development; and a host of diversity and inclusion training courses available to all employees;

• Investing to support small, minority-owned businesses through financial support, business expertise, leading technology solutions, strategic partnerships and community engagement, including expansion of our Forward Together initiative in 2021 to more U.S. cities and the United Kingdom; and

• Strengthening partnerships with organizations focused on human rights, racial equity and social justice including work by our ERGs with community organizations and groups to provide mentorship opportunities and serve as force multipliers for talent acquisition, employee engagement and diversity efforts.

Engagement

To assess employee engagement, we seek and collect employee feedback through employee engagement surveys. These surveys focus on engagement, well-being, client experience, communication, teamwork, manager effectiveness, trust and diversity and inclusion. In addition to assessing engagement, the survey results enable us to gain insight into employee perspectives and issues which we use to enhance processes, set priorities and respond quickly to associate concerns.

Well-Being and Safety

We are focused on delivering a comprehensive and competitive benefits offering as part of our total rewards strategy. We provide associates with access to a holistic suite of well-being programs and benefits focused on physical, financial, social and emotional resources. These programs are supported by complementary policies such as paid parental and military service leave policies.

In addition, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have taken actions to protect the health, safety and well-being of our employees while maintaining business continuity. These actions include, among others, restricting travel, limiting non-essential visitors to our facilities, disinfecting facilities, providing onsite testing and personal protective equipment to employees, establishing a variety of safety protocols at facilities, and requiring U.S. employees to be fully vaccinated unless they have an approved medical, religious, or state exemption.

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.