Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (FIS) is a financial technology company providing solutions to financial institutions, businesses and developers.
The company unlocks financial technology to the world across the money lifecycle underpinning the world's financial systems. The company’s people are dedicated to advancing the way the world pays, banks and invests, by helping the company’s clients to confidently run, grow and protect their businesses. The company’s expertise comes from d...
Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (FIS) is a financial technology company providing solutions to financial institutions, businesses and developers.
The company unlocks financial technology to the world across the money lifecycle underpinning the world's financial systems. The company’s people are dedicated to advancing the way the world pays, banks and invests, by helping the company’s clients to confidently run, grow and protect their businesses. The company’s expertise comes from decades of experience helping financial institutions and businesses of all sizes adapt to meet the needs of their customers by harnessing where reliability meets innovation in financial technology.
On January 31, 2024, the company completed the sale (the ‘Worldpay Sale’) of a 55% equity interest in the company’s Worldpay Merchant Solutions business to private equity funds managed by GTCR, LLC (such funds, the ‘Buyer’). FIS retained a non-controlling 45% equity interest in a new standalone joint venture, Worldpay Holdco, LLC (‘Worldpay’), following the closing of the Worldpay Sale. Worldpay continues to provide merchant acquiring and related services to businesses of all sizes and across any industry globally, enabling them to accept, authorize and settle electronic payment transactions. In connection with the Worldpay Sale, FIS and Worldpay entered into commercial agreements, preserving a key value proposition for clients of both businesses and reducing potential dis-synergies.
Strategy
The company’s strategies are to build, buy, or partner to add solutions to win new clients and cross-sell to existing clients; support the company’s clients through innovation; improve the efficiency of the company’s operations through investments in new technologies, processes and infrastructure modernization; and expand distribution.
Segments
FIS operates through Banking Solutions (‘Banking’) and Capital Market Solutions (‘Capital Markets’) segments.
Banking segment
The Banking segment is focused on serving financial institutions with core processing software, transaction processing software and complementary applications and services, many of which interact directly with core processing software. The company sells these solutions on either a bundled or stand-alone basis. Clients in this segment include global financial institutions, the U.S. regional and community banks, credit unions, and commercial lenders, as well as government institutions and other commercial organizations. The company provides its clients integrated solutions characterized by multi-year processing contracts that generate recurring revenue.
The company’s solutions in this segment include the following:
Core Processing and Ancillary Applications. The company’s core processing software applications, including deposit and lending, customer management and other central management systems, are designed to run banking processes for the company’s financial institution clients. Clients use these applications to maintain the primary records of their customer accounts. The company’s diverse selection of market-focused core processing software applications enables FIS to compete effectively in a wide range of markets. The company continues to invest in its core modernization efforts to further differentiate the company’s offerings for the long term. The company also offers a number of solutions that are ancillary to the primary applications listed above, including branch automation, back-office support systems and compliance support.
Digital, including Mobile and Online. The company’s comprehensive suite of retail and commercial applications enables financial institutions to streamline and integrate customer-facing operations with back-office processes, thereby improving customer experience across channels (e.g., branch, internet, mobile, ATM, and call centers). FIS' focus on real-time consumer access has driven significant market innovation in multi-channel, API-enabled embedded and multi-hosted solutions, underpinned by a strategy that provides tight integration and a seamless customer experience. The company’s innovative digital banking capabilities are now available to financial institutions with continually expanding functionality. The company’s digital offerings are integrated with core banking platforms offered by FIS and are also offered to customers of non-FIS core systems.
Fraud, Risk Management and Compliance. The company’s decision solutions offer a spectrum of options that cover the account lifecycle from helping to identify qualified account applicants to managing existing customer accounts and fraud. The company’s applications enable Know Your Customer, new account decisioning and opening, account and transaction management, fraud management and collections. The company’s risk management solutions use its proprietary risk management models and data sources to assist in detecting fraud and assessing the risk of opening a new account. The company’s systems use a combination of advanced authentication procedures, predictive analytics, artificial intelligence modeling and proprietary and shared databases to assess and detect fraud risk for deposit, card and other transactions for financial institutions.
Card and Retail Payments. The company’s card and retail payment technology solutions allow clients to issue VISA, MasterCard or other payment network-branded credit and debit cards or other electronic payment cards for use by both consumer and business accounts. Card-based volumes continue to increase, driven by both the number of transactions per month and the value of those transactions. The company offers EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) integrated circuit cards, often referred to as chip cards, as well as a variety of stored-value card types and loyalty programs, including the company’s Premium Payback service that allows its financial institutions' customers to use loyalty points at a variety of merchant point-of-sale systems. The company’s integrated solutions range from card production and activation to processing to an extensive range of fraud management solutions and value-added loyalty programs designed to increase card usage and fee-based revenue for financial institutions and merchants. The majority of the company’s programs are full service, including most of the operations and support necessary for an issuer to operate a credit card program. The company does not make credit decisions for its card issuing clients. The company is also a leading provider of prepaid card solutions, which include digital cards, gift cards and reloadable cards, with end-to-end solutions for the development, processing and administration of stored-value programs, including government benefit programs. The company’s closed-loop gift card solutions and loyalty programs provide merchants compelling solutions to drive consumer loyalty.
Electronic Funds Transfer and Network. The company’s electronic funds transfer and debit card processing businesses offer settlement and card management solutions for financial institution card issuers. The company offers a modern, core-agnostic payment hub with real-time fraud monitoring across payment rails. The company owns and operates several U.S. domestic debit, prepaid, ATM and credit networks that carry transactions for a variety of transaction modes. The company’s networks connect millions of cards and point-of-sale locations nationwide, providing consumers with secure, real-time access to their money. Also through the company’s networks, clients such as financial institutions, retailers and independent ATM operators can capitalize on the efficiency, consumer convenience and security of electronic real-time payments, real-time account-to-account transfers, and strategic alliances, such as surcharge-free ATM network arrangements.
Wealth and Retirement. The company provides wealth and retirement solutions that help banks, trust companies, brokerage firms, insurance firms, retirement plan professionals, benefit administrators and independent advisors acquire, service and grow their client relationships. The company provides solutions for client acquisition, transaction management, trust accounting and recordkeeping that can be deployed stand-alone, as part of an integrated wealth or retirement platform, or on an outsourced basis.
Item Processing and Output Solutions. The company’s item processing solutions furnish financial institutions with the technology needed to capture data from checks, transaction tickets and other items; image and sort items; process exceptions through keying; and perform balancing, archiving and the production of statements. The company’s item processing services are performed at one of the company’s multiple item processing centers located throughout the U.S. or on-site at client locations. The company’s extensive solutions include distributed (i.e., non-centralized) data capture, mobile deposit capture, check and remittance processing, fraud detection, and document and report management. Clients encompass banks and corporations of all sizes, from de novo banks to the largest financial institutions and corporations. The company offers a number of output solutions that are ancillary to the primary solutions the company provides, including print and mail capabilities, document composition software and solutions, and card personalization fulfillment solutions. The company’s print and mail solutions offer complete computer output solutions for the creation, management and delivery of print and fulfillment needs. The company provides its card personalization fulfillment solutions for branded credit cards and branded and non-branded debit and prepaid cards.
Capital Markets segment
The Capital Markets segment is focused on serving global financial services clients and corporations with a broad array of buy- and sell-side, treasury, risk management and lending solutions. Clients in this segment include asset managers, private equity firms, sell-side securities brokerage and trading firms, insurers, asset and auto financiers and other commercial organizations. The company’s solutions include a variety of mission-critical buy- and sell-side applications for recordkeeping, data and analytics, trading and financing, as well as corporate treasury and risk management applications. Capital Markets clients purchase the company’s solutions in various ways, including licensing and managing technology ‘in-house,’ using consulting and third-party service providers, as well as procuring fully outsourced end-to-end solutions. The company’s long-established relationships with many of these financial and commercial institutions generate significant recurring revenue. The company has made, and continues to make, investments in modern platforms, advanced technologies, open APIs, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and regulatory technology to support the company’s Capital Markets clients.
The company’s solutions in this segment include the following:
Trading and Asset Services. The company offers solutions that support its customers across the buy and sell sides of the capital markets industry, assisting them to control their front, middle and back office operations through integrated ecosystems. The company’s solutions support institutional investors, managers, broker-dealers, asset servicers and transfer agents across all asset classes, including private equity, hedge, credit, and traditional. The company’s trading applications focus on advanced trade life-cycle management, including market making and risk management, cleared derivatives processing, securities processing and securities finance, tax processing, and regulatory compliance, including anti-money laundering (AML) and trade surveillance. The company’s Asset Servicing solutions support every stage of the investment process, from research and portfolio management to order and position management, valuation, risk management, corporate actions, reconciliation, investment accounting, investor accounting, transfer agency and client reporting. The company’s solutions improve both investment decision making and operational efficiency, while managing risk and increasing transparency across the industry.
Lending. The company’s lending solutions offer full life-cycle commercial lending functionality from loan origination, commercial credit assessment and customer risk rating to loan servicing and data analytics. The company also offers the leveraged and syndicated loan markets solutions that manage amendments, secondary market trading, deal management and bookrunning. In the asset finance space, the company offers a single, end-to-end leasing platform that helps auto and equipment finance companies manage the entire financing process, supporting origination and pricing, credit decisioning, contract management, servicing and collections.
Treasury and Risk. The company’s treasury solutions help chief financial officers and treasurers manage working capital by reducing risk and improving communication and response time between a company's buyers, suppliers, banks, and other stakeholders. The company’s end-to-end financial management framework helps bring together receivables, treasury, and payments for a single view of cash and risk, which helps the company’s clients optimize business processes for enhanced liquidity management. The company’s risk portfolio of solutions manages market and credit risk and regulatory compliance for banks and actuarial risk for insurance firms.
Sales and Marketing
The company’s sales personnel have expertise in particular solutions, geographic markets and industry verticals, as well as across the company’s various client segments. Focusing the company’s expertise on clients in specific markets and tailoring integrated solution sets to participants in those markets enables the company to better serve its clients and makes the company’s offerings more attractive to prospects. The majority of the company’s prospects are identified via direct and/or indirect field sales, as well as inbound and outbound lead generation, telesales and virtual sales efforts.
The company’s global marketing team develops and leads the execution of global, role-specific and geography-based strategic marketing plans in the support of the segments' reputation and relationship building goals in addition to their revenue and profitability goals. Key components of the company’s strategic plans include brand amplification and digital enablement; market and competitive research; voice of the customer and client engagement; thought leadership; integrated go-to-market programs; internal communications and readiness; journalists and social media engagement; industry analyst relations; client events; trade shows; high-touch client programs; demand generation campaigns; account- and deal-based marketing programs; collateral development and management across digital and online channels; and the launch of new products to market.
Government Regulation
The company’s solutions are subject to a broad range of complex federal, state, and international regulations and requirements, as well as requirements under the rules of self-regulatory organizations, including without limitation, federal truth-in-lending and truth-in-savings rules, federal, state and international money transmission laws, state cybersecurity protection laws, data protection and privacy laws, cyber resilience laws, artificial intelligence laws, usury laws, laws governing state trust charters, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Electronic Funds Transfer Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Bank Service Company Act, the Bank Secrecy Act, the USA Patriot Act, the United Kingdom (‘U.K’) Money Laundering Regulations, the U.K. Proceeds of Crime Act, the U.K. Criminal Finances Act, the U.K. Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act, the U.K. Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, European Union (‘E.U.’) Anti-Money Laundering Directives, the Internal Revenue Code, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the Community Reinvestment Act and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the ‘Dodd-Frank Act’), the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Investment Advisors Act of 1940 (the ‘1940 Act’), anti-corruption laws, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (the ‘FCPA’) and the U.K. Bribery Act 2010 (the ‘U.K. Bribery Act’), the rules and regulations of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (‘FINRA’), the Securities and Exchange Commission (‘SEC’), the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (‘FFIEC’), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (‘CFPB’), the Financial Conduct Authority in the U.K. (‘FCA’), the Central Bank of Ireland in the Republic of Ireland (‘CBI’), the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier in Luxembourg (‘CSSF’), the Jersey Financial Services Commission in Jersey, Channel Islands (‘JFSC’) and state financial services regulators (including enforcement of state cybersecurity laws). The compliance of the company’s solutions with these and other applicable laws and regulations depends on a variety of factors, including the manner in which the company’s clients use them. In some cases, the company is directly subject to regulatory oversight and examination.
The principal areas of regulation impacting the company’s business are the following:
Oversight by Banking Regulators. As a provider of electronic data processing and back-office services to financial institutions, FIS is subject to regulatory oversight and examination by the FFIEC, an interagency body of federal banking regulators, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (‘FDIC’), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (‘OCC’), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (‘FRB’), the National Credit Union Administration (‘NCUA’) (collectively, the Federal Banking Agencies or ‘FBA’) and the CFPB, including as part of the Multi-Regional Data Processing Servicer (‘MDPS’) program. The company’s U.S.-based wealth and retirement business holds a charter in the state of Georgia, which makes the company subject to the regulatory compliance requirements of the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance. As a result, the company is also authorized to provide trust services in various additional states subject to additional applicable state regulations.
Payment Services Oversight. The company’s payment services businesses provide technology services to the U.S. financial institutions and are, therefore, subject to oversight and examination by the FFIEC. The company’s payment services businesses are also subject to regulation, supervision, and enforcement authority of numerous governmental and regulatory bodies in the jurisdictions in which they operate, which include the CFPB and the U.S. state regulators. These various regulatory regimes require compliance in respect of many aspects of the company’s payment services businesses, including without limitation corporate governance and oversight functions, capital requirements, liquidity, safeguarding, fee regulation adherence, technology and cyber resilience, anti-money laundering and sanctions.
Anti-Money Laundering. The company is subject to, both directly and indirectly, various anti-money laundering laws and regulations such as the Bank Secrecy Act in the United States and the Money Laundering Regulations and Proceeds of Crime Act in the U.K. These laws, among other requirements, impose obligations to develop and implement risk-based anti-money laundering programs, file regulatory reports on large cash transactions and suspicious activity, and collect and maintain certain records related to customers and transactions. Many U.S. states have similar laws that overlap with, and in some cases diverge from, the U.S. federal and international laws. As these laws continue to develop and expand, the company’s investment in compliance with these laws continues to grow, as does the cost of ongoing compliance.
Sanctions. The company is subject to certain U.S. federal, state and international economic and trade sanctions programs, such as those that are administered by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (referred to as ‘OFAC’), which prohibit or restrict transactions to or from, or dealings with, specified countries and regions, their governments, and in certain circumstances, their nationals, and with individuals and entities that are specially-designated nationals, narcotics traffickers, and terrorists or terrorist organizations. Similar programs exist in a number of other jurisdictions, most notably those administered by the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (‘OFSI’) in the U.K., E.U. sanctions, and United Nations sanctions. The company has implemented policies, procedures, and internal controls that are designed to comply with global economic sanctions programs which are increasingly complex and rapidly evolving in response to geopolitical events. Those policies and procedures require the screening of third parties with which the company does business, including clients and vendors, and transactions where appropriate.
Anti-Corruption. The company is subject to applicable anti-corruption laws, including the FCPA and the U.K. Bribery Act, in the jurisdictions in which it operates. Anti-corruption laws generally prohibit offering, promising, giving, or authorizing others to give, anything of value, either directly or indirectly, to a government official or private party in order to influence official action or otherwise to gain an unfair business advantage, such as to obtain or retain business. The company has implemented policies, procedures, training and internal controls that are designed to comply with such laws, rules and regulations.
Privacy and Data Protection. The company is subject to an increasing number of privacy and data protection laws, regulations and directives globally, including the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’) in the E.U., the California Consumer Privacy Act (‘CCPA’) as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (‘CPRA’), the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (‘VCDPA’), the Colorado Privacy Act (‘CPA’), the Connecticut Personal Data Privacy and Online Monitoring Act (‘CTDPA’), the Utah Consumer Privacy Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (‘GLBA’), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (‘FCRA’), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (‘HIPAA’) in the United States; the U.K.'s General Data Protection Regulation (‘U.K. GDPR’) and Data Protection Act 2018; the General Personal Data Protection Act (‘LGPD’) in Brazil; the China Personal Information Protection Law (‘PIPL’); and the Japanese Act on the Protection of Personal Information (‘APPI’) (referred to collectively as ‘Privacy Laws’). Many of these Privacy Laws place restrictions on the company's ability to efficiently transfer, access and use personal data across its business. The legislative and regulatory landscape for privacy and data protection continues to evolve.
As a provider of solutions to financial institutions, the company is required to comply with the Privacy Laws and are bound by the same limitations on disclosure of the information received from the company’s clients as apply to the financial institutions themselves. Certain operations of the company is also subject to the newer, comprehensive, U.S. state-level Privacy Laws that provide consumers with additional data protection rights, including the right to be informed about the personal information collected by third parties and the use of that personal information, and which also impose obligations on companies in connection with the use of personal information.
The company is subject to the E.U.’s GDPR, which applies to all organizations processing the personal data of individuals in the E.U., regardless of where such organization is based. The GDPR has heightened the company’s privacy and data protection compliance obligations, impacted the company’s businesses' collection, processing and retention of personal data and imposed stricter standards for reporting data breaches.
Oversight by Securities Regulators. The company’s subsidiary that conducts its broker-dealer business in the U.S. is registered as a broker-dealer with the SEC, is a member of FINRA, and is registered as a broker-dealer in numerous states. The company’s broker-dealer is subject to regulation and oversight by the SEC. In addition, FINRA, a self-regulatory organization that is subject to oversight by the SEC, adopts and enforces rules governing the conduct, and examines the activities, of its member firms, including the company’s broker-dealer. State securities regulators and various exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange, also have regulatory or oversight authority over the company’s broker-dealer.
The company’s subsidiaries also include an SEC-registered transfer agent. The company’s registered transfer agent is subject to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the rules and regulations promulgated thereunder. These laws and regulations generally grant the SEC and other supervisory bodies broad administrative powers to address non-compliance with regulatory requirements.
Subsidiaries engaged in activities outside the U.S. are regulated by various government agencies in the particular jurisdiction where they are chartered, incorporated and/or conduct their business activity. For example, pursuant to the U.K. Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (‘FSMA’), certain of the company’s subsidiaries are subject to regulations promulgated and administered by the FCA. The FSMA and rules promulgated thereunder govern all aspects of the U.K. investment business, including sales, research and trading practices, provision of investment advice, use and safekeeping of client funds and securities, regulatory capital, recordkeeping, margin practices and procedures, approval standards for individuals, financial crime systems and controls, periodic reporting and settlement procedures.
Money Transfer. Elements of the company’s cash access and money transmission businesses are registered as a Money Services Business and are subject to various federal, state and international laws governing money transmission, including but not limited to the USA PATRIOT Act and reporting requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act, as well as various U.S. federal, state and international sanctions requirements. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, state attorneys general, and other agencies have enforcement responsibility over laws relating to money laundering, currency transmission, and licensing. In applicable states, the company has obtained money transmitter licenses.
Consumer Reporting and Protection. The company’s decision solutions subsidiary, ChexSystems, maintains a database of consumer information used to provide various account opening services, including credit scoring analysis, and is subject to the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (‘FCRA’) and similar state laws. The FCRA regulates consumer reporting agencies (‘CRAs’), including ChexSystems, and governs the accuracy, fairness, and privacy of information in the files of CRAs that engage in the practice of assembling or evaluating certain information relating to consumers for certain specified purposes. CRAs are required to follow reasonable procedures to ensure maximum possible accuracy of information concerning the individual to whom the report relates, and if a consumer disputes the accuracy of any information in the consumer's file, to conduct a reasonable investigation within statutory timelines. The FCRA imposes many other requirements on CRAs and users of consumer report information. Regulatory enforcement of the FCRA is under the purview of the United States Federal Trade Commission, the CFPB, and state attorneys general, acting alone or in concert with one another. CRAs are also regulated by a number of states, including New York, with consumer reporting laws that are not pre-empted by the FCRA. In furtherance of the company’s objectives of data accuracy, fair treatment of consumers, protection of consumers' personal information, and compliance with these laws, the company has made considerable investment to maintain a high level of security for the company’s computer systems in which consumer data resides, and the company maintains consumer relations call centers to facilitate accurate and timely handling of consumer requests for information and disputes. The company is also focused on ensuring its operating environments safeguard and protect consumers' personal information in compliance with these laws.
The company’s consumer reporting and consumer-facing businesses are subject to CFPB Bulletin 2013-7 (a successor to the former Regulation AA - Unfair Deceptive Acts or Practices), which defines Unfair, Deceptive or Abusive Acts or Practices (‘UDAAP’). This specific bulletin states that UDAAPs can cause significant financial injury to consumers, erode consumer confidence, and undermine fair competition in the financial marketplace. Original creditors and other covered persons and service providers under the Dodd-Frank Act involved in collecting debt related to any consumer financial product or service are subject to the prohibition against UDAAPs in the Dodd-Frank Act.
In addition, the company’s U.K. regulated entity, Platform Securities LLP, is required to comply with the FCA’s Consumer Duty (the ‘Duty’) in connection with its Wealth business. The Duty sets high standards of consumer protection across financial services and requires firms to put their customers' needs first.
Debt Collection. The company’s collection services are subject to the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and various state collection laws and licensing requirements. The Federal Trade Commission, as well as state attorneys general and other agencies, have enforcement responsibility over the collection laws, as well as the various credit reporting laws.
History
Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. was founded in 1968.
