Fidelity National Information Services, Inc.

Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (FIS) is an American financial technology company. Annually, FIS facilitates the movement of roughly US$9 trillion through the processing of approximately 75 billion transactions in service to more than 20,000 clients around the globe.

FIS was ranked second in the FinTech Forward 2016 rankings. After acquiring Worldpay for $35 billion in Q3 of 2019, FIS became the largest processing and payments company in the world.

History

The company was founded in Little Rock in 1968 as Systematics, which was later acquired by ALLTEL Information Services as its Financial Services division.

Alltell then sold this division to title insurance giant Fidelity National Financial in 2003, who renamed it Fidelity Information Services (FIS).

Operations

FIS has a portfolio of products for the financial services sector, including both retail and investment banking. They include "Profile"―a banking application based on the open source GT.M, a transaction processing database engine maintained by FIS.

Mergers, acquisitions and divestments

Throughout its history, FIS has made many acquisitions. Its largest, a proposed merger with Global Payments, was reported as being worth US$70 billion of combined enterprise value. Discussions about the merger were halted in December 2020.

Alltel Information Services, $1.05 billion (2003)

WebTone Technologies (2003)

Sanchez Computer Associates, $175 million (2004)

Aurum Technology (2004)

BankWare (2004)

InterCept (2004)

Kordoba GmbH & Co, $163.2 million (2004)

Merger with Certegy Inc., $1.8 billion (2006)

eFunds Corporation (EFD), approximately $1.8 billion in cash (2007)

Metavante Corporation, $2.94 billion in stock (2009)

Compliance Coach, Inc, 2010

Capco, $292 million (2010) In May 2017 FIS sold a 60% stake in Capco to CD&R funds for $477 million.

Pronet Solutions, $24 million (2012)

TDWI (Toronto Dominion Wealth Institutional) – now re-branded as Platform Securities (2013)

mFoundry, $120 million (2013)

CMSI (2014)

Reliance Trust Company (2014) $110 million

Clear2Pay (2014) $480 million

SunGard (2015) $9.1 billion

Worldpay, Inc. (2019) $43 billion

Virtus Partners (2020)

Payrix (2022)

Bond Financial Technologies (2023)

Torstone Technology (2024)

Dragonfly Financial Technologies (2024)

Demica (2024)

Amount (2025)

Everlink (2025)

TSYS, $13.5 billion (2026)

Divestments

In February 2023, in the wake of pressure from activist investors, the company announced it would spin off its merchant business that consisted of Worldpay in the 12 months that followed. In July 2023, FIS agreed to sell a 55 percent stake in Worldpay to private equity firm GTCR for $11.7 billion, valuing Worldpay at $18.5 billion. On February 1, 2024, the company announced it had completed the sale of a majority stake in its Worldpay Merchant Solutions business to GTCR in a transaction that valued the deal at US$18.5 billion, including US$1 billion contingent on returns realized by GTCR. FIS will maintain commercial agreements with Worldpay and will create a joint strategic go-to-market partnership between the two entities.

In April 2025, Global Payments agreed to acquire Worldpay, for $22 billion from GTCR and FIS. As part of this deal, they also agreed to sell their Issuer Solutions business, TSYS, to FIS for $13.5 billion. The transaction was completed in January 2026.

Finances

FIS has experienced fluctuating revenue and profitability in recent years, influenced by acquisitions, divestitures, and restructuring efforts, most notably around its Worldpay business. After a decline in 2022, the company stabilised its performance in 2023 and returned to growth in 2024.

In 2024, FIS reported $14.51 billion in revenue, an increase from $14.50 billion in 2023. Operating income grew significantly to $3.55 billion, and net income reached $1.94 billion, reflecting improved margin performance following the spin-off of Worldpay. As of Q1 2025, the company reported strong quarterly results with a 3% year-over-year revenue increase and an adjusted EPS of $1.21. It expects to return over $1.2 billion to shareholders in 2025 through share repurchases and dividends.

Controversies

On July 3, 2007, Certegy Check Services, part of FIS, announced that a worker at one of its subsidiaries stole 2.3 million consumer records containing credit card, bank account, and other personal information. This estimate was later increased to 8.5 million consumer records. The next month, a law firm filed a class-action lawsuit against CCS and parent company FIS based on the privacy breach; the firm claims that, since CCS provides check-verification services to many major U.S. stores, "consumers do not choose to use the services of these companies but rather are forced to do so".

In August 2011, Florida based eFunds Prepaid Solutions, part of FIS, was the victim of a sophisticated cyberattack that saw hackers steal $13 million from ATMs using 22 stolen prepaid cards belonging to a single client of FIS.

On January 16-17, 2025, FIS reported a power outage causing technical issues at a large number of banks, including Capital One. Depositors report not being able to access online or mobile banking or not having accurate current data.