Following on from the disappointing last quarter of 2009 for its Financial Institution Services business, Fiserv has yet again experienced a revenue decline for the division in the first quarter of this year. The business experienced a decline in revenue of 3.3% or US$16 million from US$488 million in the first quarter of 2009 to US$472 million in the same quarter this year.
These results do not bode well for the long term outlook of the vendor’s Financial Institution Services division, which includes corporate actions solution eVent. Especially taking into account the results from the last quarter and last year (fourth quarter 2009), when the division experienced 0% revenue growth for the quarter and a decline in revenue of 4% for 2009 overall. The division has also lost a number of key staff members and has not announced a public win for eVent in over 12 months.
The vendor announced in September last year that it had invested in its eVent corporate actions automation solution and released a new upgrade, aimed at improving the flexibility of election and instruction processing and the notifications process with more customisable options. However, this investment does not appear to have resulted in an uptick in eVent’s fortunes.
Given that other corporate actions solution providers seem to be faring rather better despite the climate, this silence is unusual. Perhaps the vendor is revising its strategy and is set to exit the market and instead focus on areas that it feels are more promising in terms of profitability such as payments and risk management?
According to Jeffery Yabuki, president and CEO of the vendor, it is funding new product investments in “several strategic areas” this year. Odds on one of these isn’t corporate actions.
