Fiserv beefs up restaurant tech as POS battle heats up | PaymentsSource

The payments industry over the past several days has focused on restaurants as a way to breathe new life into their point of sale systems, with Fiserv adding new features as it battles rivals and tries to recover from a recent stock sell-off. 

The bank technology seller over the weekend released Clover Hospitality by BentoBox, adding commerce experience technology to the Clover payments system to mitigate churn among Fiserv’s 125,000 restaurant clients while attracting new users.

The announcement follows a steep stock sell-off after Fiserv mentioned growth was slowing for Clover. It also comes at the same time that Global Payments released its Genius payment system, with restaurants being the first target industry. 

Clover’s importance to Fiserv

Fiserv added Clover, which supports payments and other merchant services, when it acquired payment processor First Data in 2019. Fiserv has used Clover as a way to build its payment business by adding technology and as a distribution network for bank clients. 

“It is interesting that both companies are introducing products targeting the restaurant space, where Toast is doing very well,” Aaron McPherson, principal at AFM Consulting, told American Banker, adding this reflects pressure on their point of sale lines from companies that provide tailored solutions to specific verticals.

“It shows that there is still room to stand out in the crowded field by narrowing one’s focus,” McPherson said. “Whether larger companies like Fiserv and Global Payments can do this as effectively remains to be seen; their customer service is often stretched thin in a way that a more focused, smaller competitor’s is not.” 

What’s behind Fiserv’s selloff?

Fiserv’s new restaurant release comes as Clover’s first-quarter volume growth slowed to 8%, down from 14% the prior year, which the bank technology company said was influenced by a gateway conversion and leap-year effects.

Fiserv’s stock was up more than 1% on Monday but fell more than 10% Friday after the company told attendees at a JPMorganChase investors day that Clover’s volume growth would be “flat” in the second quarter. 

Fiserv did maintain its revenue target of $3.5 billion for Clover for 2025, adding the company is investing in new product development, with capital expenditures between $1.4 billion and $1.5 billion for 2025. 

Fiserv’s stock has fallen more than 25% since April 23, when its first-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $2.14 beat analysts’ expectations by 3%, but its adjusted revenue of $4.8 billion missed expectations by 1.6%.

During JPMorgan’s investor call, Fiserv also noted Clover’s international footprint has grown with the addition of four new countries in 2025, the integration of payroll processor ADP technology into Clover was completed this month, and Fiserv signed its first client for Cash Flow Central — a small-business payment product with more than 50 other businesses in the pipeline. It also expanded partnerships with Target and Verizon. 

In an email to American Banker, Fiserv said “Clover Hospitality is one of many offerings that will support our strong volume and revenue growth going forward. We remain encouraged as ever by our ability to extend Clover’s leading market position, as we continue to build the most complete business operating system for SMBs.” 

“One of the secret sauces to Fiserv is I don’t have a product or two products that have to be a home run,” Fiserv CFO Bob Howe said, according to an Investors.com transcript of the JPMorgan investors conference.

During the conference, Howe said, “I expect all of the [gateway conversions] to hit and I expect all of them to hit on time at the [rate] that I expect, but unfortunately that’s not reality. So some things come a little bit faster, some things come a little bit slower.”

Howe also said Clover’s revenue was up 27% year over year, and the point of sale system has a busy pipeline of new products.

Fiserv’s stock turnaround may be challenging, according to analysts at KBW, who said that Clover operates in the small-business industry, where amassing new users and payment volume takes time. It’s also a very competitive market, they said.

“Investors care more about market share gain potential than revenue growth, and volume is the closest proxy for that,” the analysts said.

The competitive landscape in POS systems

The declining spread between Clover’s gross payment volume and Visa and Mastercard’s U.S. volume implies the pace of Clover’s market share gain against paytech is declining, Jeffries analysts said in a research note.

“Whether the Clover deceleration is purely an output of an unfavorable mix dynamic, or incremental competitive intensity, as we’ve seen play out in the post-2020 landscape across the [payment technology] group, intense scrutiny over market share has been a challenging dynamic to overcome,” Jeffries said.

However, analysts at William Blair said Fiserv’s recent sell-off was overdone. 

“We see Clover as a leading software-integrated POS solution and argue that U.S. SMB processing is a large, fragmented addressable market,” William Blair said in a research note. 

Fiserv benefits from scaled distribution, including about 1,000 partner banks that give Clover a boost as these partners sell hardware and software and bundle Clover with Cash Flow Central. 

William Blair also discounted pressure from competition, noting the U.S. small-business point of sale market has about $3.1 trillion in yearly payments volume, with the largest opportunities in food-and-beverage and services businesses with $500,000 to $20 million in yearly receipts — which matches Clover’s focus. 

“I suppose this sell-off might have meant to some that last year’s performance was juiced by [the gateway conversion], and overall the unit is not doing as well as was thought,” McPherson said. “Still, it seems like an overreaction.” 

How eoes BentoBox improve restaurant tech?

BentoBox, acquired by Fiserv, enhances restaurant technology by integrating marketing, ordering, and reservation tools into a single platform. It allows restaurants to reduce wait times, automate table management, and send digital notifications to customers. Through Clover Hospitality, BentoBox also improves a restaurant’s online presence, helping businesses attract new diners and streamline operations across both front- and back-of-house functions.

Who are Clover’s competitors in the restaurant POS market?

PayPal, Block and Stripe are enhancing their products to attract small to medium-sized businesses, as well as own more of these business relationships at a time when many companies are downsizing their suppliers and vendors.