Leading FIS Through A Fintech Reset with Stephanie Ferris

We talk with FIS CEO Stephanie Ferris about building a career by leaning into risk, leading teams through complex M&A, and simplifying a legacy fintech business to focus on financial institutions. We also dig into why trust is the real infrastructure of banking, how tokenization is evolving, and why AI should make fintech leaders more optimistic, not fearful.

• Career path from PwC to Fifth Third to Vantiv to FIS, prioritizing tough roles and high learning curves
• How major M&A really happens, from long strategy conversations to relationship-driven execution
• Why FIS separates Worldpay and what the three-party transaction changes operationally
• Build versus buy in payments, and the scarcity of scaled credit card processing assets
• Trust as the foundation of financial services, lessons from SVB, 9/11, and COVID-era stress
• How banks and fintechs compete and partner, including shifting regulatory dynamics
• Stablecoins and tokenized deposits, practical use cases and what remains nascent in the US
• Imposter syndrome, coaching, and doing the reps as a leadership skill
• Generative AI as a strategic accelerant, and what it means for product delivery and speed

Connect with the Host & Guest

Sasha Pilch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sasha-pilch

Stephanie Ferris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanieferris

Transcript

Welcome

Sasha Pilch 0:05

Welcome to the listeners of the This Month in FinTech podcast. We're so glad that you could all join us today. My name is Sasha Pilge, and I'm absolutely delighted to interview our guest today, Stephanie Ferris, CEO of FIS. Hi, Stephanie. I'm thrilled to have you on the podcast today.

Stephanie Ferris 0:24

Thanks, Sasha. Happy to be here.

Sasha Pilch 0:27

So many of my friends that work at FIS speak so highly of you and how impressive you are. And it's so cool to watch Jim Kramer on CNBC talk about your giant MA activity. And when I found out you were willing to come on this month in podcast, this month in FinTech podcast, I was so excited and it was a real pinch myself moment. So I'm really looking forward to getting into all the monumental things that you've achieved in your career.

Stephanie Ferris 0:54

Well, thank you. You've set the bar high. Let's see if we can let's see if we can do it.

From CPA To Financial Services Leader

Sasha Pilch 0:59

Okay, so first of all, starting with your path to getting to where you are. So you grew up in Cincinnati, you put yourself through college and studied accounting, which set you up to start at PWC, which you stayed for six years. Were you on a graduate program there?

Stephanie Ferris 1:15

I was not. So I graduated and got my CPA with PWC and stayed there and got a lot of great opportunities across a ton of different industries. And I left there right when the dot-com bubble was happening and launched out of there into fifth third bank during when banking was growing, which is interesting because I think it hasn't been probably since 2007 that there's been a real growth agenda going on in banking. But I think we're clearly at that moment. We'll probably come back to that, Sasha. But yeah, so PWC to fifth third, um, making a big leap into financial services.

Sasha Pilch 1:54

And that role at fifth third ended up being your first C-suite position as chief financial officer. Very impressive. Um, and then the division spun out as van, even you spent another six years there.

Stephanie Ferris 2:08

Yep, I sure did. So during that time period, really leaned into, and this is probably something that you know we can touch on is being willing to lean into like times of risk and where there's great uncertainty. So we spun out of if their bank became bantive, as you mentioned, during the financial crisis. Um, and it was a real opportunity, but it was also really scary, a time to, you know, leave the bank, which was perceived as a safer place to be, albeit our stock was at a dollar at that point. So I'm not sure how safe really things were, um, and lean into going and becoming a part of a company that was private equity owned. So, yes, did that um in 2009. Um, and then from 2009 to 2019, um was carried many positions, head of strategy, CFO, um ultimately, and we did eight acquisitions in 10 years, um, culminating with the acquisition of World Pay, where I was the CFO. And then in 2019, um we sold, we being WorldPay, sold our business to FIS. And then I came into FIS. Um, it was interesting at the time because I had had many roles over my career, primarily finance related, but I did do a big business role. Um, and I think that's really important, especially if you're um really trying to lean in and advance your career. Um, and I came into FIS in 2019 and the CEO at the time asked me to become the chief operating officer, which was super interesting because that was never a role I kind of considered that I would have. Um, and I had been CFO, um, so I gave up my CFO role and took over the technology operations strategy and MA part of the business.

Sasha Pilch 4:00

And it really shows all this MA activity experience that you've had, which then later led to you becoming the chief executive officer of FIS. Such an incredible milestone. Did you ever think that you were going to be the CEO of a billion-dollar global company?

Stephanie Ferris 4:24

Um, no. Um it's so interesting because you know, you look back at your career, and some people will tell you, like, I dreamed of this, and this was my from the time I was young, um, what I wanted to do. No, I didn't. Um what I always dreamed about was being part of a team. I'm super competitive and doing you know, things that people never thought were capable, you know, anyone was capable of doing. And it wasn't me, it was the team coming together. And so um that coupled with just getting up every day and getting after it, um, really having a very hard work ethic, strong work ethic. And I would say also not being afraid to lean in where there was a lot of risk. Um, so I really was always focused on like the next thing in terms of what could we do as a company that would be meaningful and make sure that we stayed on top of our industry, you know, best product for our clients, et cetera. So I really let that drive me. I'm also I love the challenge of constantly the next thing. Um, that's something that I love, and that you know, just the challenge of doing it. But no, I never, I never dreamed. And and it's and it's absolutely an honor and a privilege, I will tell you, Sasha, it is.

The Worldpay Deal Strategy

Sasha Pilch 5:45

Yeah, and it's just so impressive as well. So um, congratulations, and from everything I've heard, you've been doing an amazing job. I think it's probably a good segue to double-click into some of the MA activity. So in 2023, the PE firm GTCR acquires 55% of world pay from FIS for $18.5 billion. And then last year, Global Payments GPN acquires world pay from GTCR and FIS for $22.7 billion. And FIS acquires GPN's issuer solution business, frequently known, formerly known as Teesus, um, for $13.5 billion. So huge and complex deals. Can you break down some of the thinking behind it?

Stephanie Ferris 6:37

Yeah. So every deal, whether small or large, comes with what is its purpose? So what are we strategically trying to accomplish? And it's interesting when I when we announced these deals, there were two questions that came that I thought was kind of funny. The first one was um, boy, this must have come together very quickly because the market didn't know about it. Deals never come together quickly. So these are strategic conversations that people have for years and years. Um, you know, one of the things that's really important, whether you're the CEO or CFO or anyone in the company, is understand your market really, really well. And always be thinking about, as my head of strategy says, peeking around the corner, what potential moves could happen. And if another person moved, how would we move? And so I spend a lot of time just watching the market, understanding the market, talking to everybody in the market, and then trying to be really strategic about okay, if then and what we would do. I would say the separation of the world pay business, quite frankly, Sasha, was one that was predicated upon you know active investors coming into our stock and you know, our TSR not really performing over the last five or six years like it needed to be. So we made that difficult decision to separate the business. At the time, um we couldn't get the whole business sold. Um, and so we were able to sell 55% of it to GTCR. Um, I think what surprised people though was turning around very quickly and getting the rest of it sold and then getting effectively the three-away trade. And what I would say is it's really important to have strong relationships in the business, not only with private equity, like I do with GTCR, but also with Cameron Brady and Global Payments and all of my peers in the industry, because the only way you can get deals done, of course, the financials matter, but you have to be strategically aligned that it's the right thing to do for both companies, and you do have to trust each other. And so that's ultimately what got this transaction done. But I will admit, this one even was probably the most complicated we've done. And I've done quite a few at this point. But the three-way is much harder when there's three parties than two parties. Um, so we definitely advanced the degree of difficulty. And then I couldn't be prouder of the team because when we originally put the deal together when we announced it last April, we actually thought it might take up to two years to get regulatory approval. So the fact that we got approval in less than a year around the world is fantastic. And all shouts out to the team and you know, luck is also always helpful. Um, but you were thrilled to be here on the other side of that because it's really simplified FIS. We are now a financial technology company that primarily serves financial services. We're not confused by serving small merchants or anything like that. And so we're able to really focus on our customers and having the right product set for them.

Sasha Pilch 9:49

Excellent. And so impressive that the regulatory piece was approved so quickly. That just like never happened. So you must have a really, really strong team working on this, and that's great to hear. We do. Um just um going into like the the third component of the deal. So the Thesus acquisition of the processing um component. So was this part of increasing FIS's market share from a global transaction standpoint? Um I've read that the issuing business for FIS went from 1% to 34%. Um, so was a major driver. This is a fintech podcast, so I'll mention a few other fintech small, much smaller companies, but Galileo, Marquetta, Stripe, the European fintech player that has just come into the US client and raised $100 million processes like Square, PayPal, Adion, et cetera. Can you talk a little bit about FIS in relation to those?

Buying Scale In Credit Processing

Stephanie Ferris 10:54

Yeah, absolutely. So we did an investor day in 2023 or four, I can't even remember at this point. And what we laid out that was critically important for FIS was that we needed to grow across three vectors inside our business. So we needed to grow in payments, we needed to grow in lending, um, and we needed to grow in our digital capabilities. And so when you peel back payments and you think about growing in payments globally, we had a really strong debit card offering. We had a really strong money set of money movement capabilities. So think real-time payments, ACH, wire, et cetera. Um, what we didn't have was a real scaled credit card processing capability. And honestly, in order for us to grow, we had to somehow get that. Now, in reality, you go from, as you mentioned, if you're looking at credit card processing, Tysys, which is the largest in the world, um, and the only scaled provider, and then you go down into to smaller ones like Zeta Um and Marquetta. Um, and those are more next-gen and really important great competitors. So there was the there was this really cool opportunity where global payments wanted the World Pay Asset, and we had the opportunity to take down the largest credit card processing business in the world, and so it was strategically perfectly positioned. Now it is important to understand that um we're also so there's two things in credit card processing. One, it's massively scaled in the US, it serves the top 10 largest financial institutions who are who are generally the credit card processors, but it also has a very significant international business for us that competes with their next-gen cloud product called Prime. So, all like all of that together, we really couldn't have built that. We were going to have to buy that capability. Um, and there's just it's there's a scarcity of assets. So being able to get that inside FIS, I'll tell you something really interesting too, it was interesting. It's not like I was the first person who had ever thought about this. The FIS and the global payments and the Tees folks would all tell you there were we there were multiple conversations about FIS acquiring total issuing over the last, say, 10 or 20 years. Um, it was a combination that they always thought, they both leadership teams thought made sense. Um but it all comes down to timing and ultimately price. So um I was thrilled to be able to get it done.

Sasha Pilch 13:49

Yeah, it's it's huge. And that whole build versus buy, you know, mantra is like um important for so many big financial services institutions like yours. And there's been a number of acquisitions, and I've heard you talk about the importance of culture and maintaining the culture of the companies that you've acquired. And so I've been through an acquisition myself. I was part of Quovo, which was acquired by Plaid. Um, and it's definitely exciting times when big acquisitions like that happen. Um, switching gears a little bit now, something that I've heard you talk about a lot is the fact that FIS offers safety to clients and the ability to access their money at any time, whether it's to withdraw it, to trade it, to lend it, etc. And it's wonderful that the FIS infrastructure ensures that the security of the thousands of banks that you power is as strong as it is. One question that I have is about your thoughts on what happened in March of 2023 with the SVB bank run. Um, just because that was kind of the first time in my lifetime that I've seen a big bank have these fears of are the customers going to be able to access their money.

Trust Infrastructure And The SVB Run

Stephanie Ferris 15:11

Yeah. So, Sasha, I think it's really important, and it's one of the reasons why I love being a part of FIS. Um, because taking a step back, so the financial services industry is really based on trust. Fundamentally, you believe that you have access to your money at any time. It's not technically that you can touch it. You trust that you trust in the system. And so what we talk about at FIS is we um we are the technology that moves money across the entire money lifecycle. So you trust us that your deposits are in your account, you trust us when a trade happens, um, money at work, money at rest, money in movement. And it's super interesting. So, you know, your first time was during the SVB crisis, but what I would say is my first time was during 9-11 in the middle of being inside a bank. Similar feature of like, we have to be open. The financial services industry and the technology that serves it has to stay up and running all the time for you to make for you to feel confident and have the trust in the system. And when you don't have trust in the system, is when you get bank runs like this. So, what I would say is um we take that very seriously, just like the financial services industry takes it very seriously. So that doesn't mean that we don't have problems as a technology provider, but we understand the level of security, stability, and resilience that is necessary to keep that trust inside the financial services industry. So, what you saw in SVB and First Republic was a breakdown of the trust and a little tiny piece of our of the financial services industry. I mean, I'm happy to report that the good news I think we've seen, whether it's this little blip or during COVID, quite frankly, when a lot of uh money was moved out in from the government into small businesses vis-a-vis the banking industry around the world, um, or during 9-11 when things were kept open, you can see how important financial services are to communities. Because fundamentally, communities start to collapse if you don't believe in your financial services. And you believe in your financial services because you can see your money and ultimately decide if you want to touch your money. So that's the infrastructure that we provide, that's the technology we provide. And we wake up every day making sure that that is the most important thing on our minds every day, that trust and making sure that we can provide the technology that continues to keep you trusting in your financial services.

Banks And Fintechs Converge

Sasha Pilch 17:57

And I think trust is like such an important factor, and it's been really incredible over the last nine years that I've been in fintech to watch that grow. I spent the first 10 years of my career working for big banks in Australia, CBA, Westpac, in London, um, Royal Bank of Scotland and City. And then when I came to New York and made the shift into FinTech, there wasn't that trust yet. So I was an early employee at Quovo. We were having our FinTech customers connect to Wells Fargo, Bank of America, all the top tier and the long tail. And at that time, the banks were like, we don't want you to connect. And our stance was, well, the data is the customer's data, and therefore we're enabling them to access that. And then fast forward to today, and banks have allowed for OAuth and are very trusting of the likes of Plaid and Finicity, etc. So I think it's really exciting to see that trust is evolving in not only banks but fintech companies as well.

Stephanie Ferris 19:04

Well, I might I might add on to that two things. One is I think what you saw banks start to recognize and the financial services industry is that they have to adopt new innovative technologies, which is what you were providing to them, in order for them to stay relevant because technology was moving forward. So they have to. And they can either decide to build it or buy it or partner. It doesn't matter. So that's good, by the way, for the financial services industry. Like that pressure keeps the financial services industry um moving and current. I think the other thing that we're seeing that I really like what's happening right now is the current um regulatory landscape is allowing fintechs now to become banks and allowing banks to compete with fintechs by providing crypto, by providing tokenized deposits. And there's a view that you know you're we're all in the landscape together, either competing or partnering, but everybody should be able to be inside the landscape and competing on their requisite strengths. So in your startup, for example, it was the technology, but in JP Morgan or Wells, it was the strength and the um stability and the durability and size of the bank. So I think that's really, really good. It ultimately, you know, there's winners and losers, of course, all along the way. Um, but I think that's good for the financial services industry broadly.

Stablecoins And Tokenized Deposits

Sasha Pilch 20:31

Yeah, I totally agree. Um, especially because these newer fintechs aren't built on legacy systems. They can be more customer-centric, so it is better for the consumer in the end. Um, I'm so glad that you brought up tokenization. I wasn't sure like whether we would touch on that, but it is really the hottest thing in fintech right now. Like this week in fintech have a conference, Stablecon. I'm working with a client called Turnkey, which offers stablecoin or just digital asset wallet infrastructure. How is FIS thinking about adopting it? Is it something that's still very much in its nascy, like many of the other larger financial institutions?

Stephanie Ferris 21:11

No, I think um 100%. So our job is to make sure that we provide the technology. So whether you want to do stable coin or tokenized deposits or crypto, you want to connect a circle. Our job is to make that technology and those products available to our customers. Um, transparently, all of our customers, financial institutions, are absolutely interested. Okay, they're absolutely interested. I think the the use cases are still pretty nascent, especially in the US for most of those. Um, but they understand that they have to have those capabilities because their customers ultimately at some point will want them. TBD, though, what ends up working, as you know, um, all kinds of things they come out, and it's like this is gonna to be the next thing. So we have a product called Money Movement Hub, and it's a technology that effectively allows a bank to place the technology inside their bank and then they can offer it out AC ACH, real-time payments, FedNow, Wire, Circle, tokenized deposits, etc. So we bring the capabilities. I think that there is a view broadly in financial services that you and I will have a deposit account that is or a wallet that is our traditional deposits and then our you know digital deposits. And the world will eventually move there. And I think you're seeing most financial services companies trying to be figure out how to be ready for that. Do I see a huge end consumer or or business demand yet that's not cross-border? No, not yet. I think tokenized deposits between financial institutions as a way to do correspondent banking is probably the use case that's most relevant for banks, but like that's not going to be interesting to consumers quite yet.

Sasha Pilch 23:05

Yeah, I totally agree. I think like the FX is obviously the most apparent use case where digital assets can be beneficial because you're not having to transfer to multiple different currencies. But from a business perspective I think and it's still you know within that realm but treasury management using this new type of infrastructure makes sense as well.

Stephanie Ferris 23:30

Totally.

Imposter Syndrome And Female Leadership

Sasha Pilch 23:31

Great. Okay so we only have seven minutes left so I'm just going to switch gears to a subject that's actually very close to my heart which is female empowerment. I am extremely passionate about it. It's why I started NYC FinTech Women nine years ago. It's since grown to 18,000 members across the US and we have chapters in thank you it's been wonderful and we have chapters in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and Miami. So considering that I'm talking to women that are in financial services and tech pretty much all day every day one of the things that seems to come up that we don't have a good solution for yet is this this issue of imposter syndrome. I definitely get it I worked at an all-male VC firm before starting my own company GTM Guild and for any of the women listening I would love to hear from you how you combat imposter syndrome.

Stephanie Ferris 24:33

Ah Sasha we all have it I think you know it's interesting I got a coach when I became CEO and this was one of the topics because as you said everybody has it. And by the way I have it I had it I have it as a CEO as well I asked him so I chose my coach because he has been coaching CEOs for the last 30 years. And so statistically as you might imagine he I might be his first female CEO. And I wanted someone that had a lot of experience coaching CEOs because I wanted to be able to ask questions like is this a normal CEO question or is this a crazy Stephanie CEO one? I wanted that level of like help me knit through this.

Sasha Pilch 25:17

Yeah.

Stephanie Ferris 25:18

He would tell me when I talked about that that every single CEO um and every single person has imposter syndrome. I think that we as women tend to um talk about it a lot more because we're just more verbal and it potentially stymies us more. You know from opening up your own business and from being a VC you're just going to talk yourself into and getting through it. There is really no perfect thing. I think the more success you have obviously the less imposter syndrome shows up. But quite frankly I think it shows up for everybody all the time and it's just learning to deal with it is probably the best advice I can give. I mean I was just at a CEO event the last third last Thursday and Friday I didn't have imposter syndrome but I was definitely impressed and um a little bit intimidated by some of the CEOs in the room. And I think that's just a matter of familiarity and just forcing yourself to continue to go and you know own your own mojo.

Sasha Pilch 26:31

I don't have a great answer for that one for no I think that I think that is such a great answer because it is interesting like everyone has it men and women will all types of people and we tend as women to have it a little bit more because of you know 200 years of history etc but just having the bravery to do it like go to the event speak at the event etc and then the reps I guess make it easier and easier.

Stephanie Ferris 27:03

There's two more maybe I asked my husband about it a lot and he's like what are you talking about? Why would you what? And so that is helpful because it does kind of like shock me back into you know you know get your head out of your you know what. And then I do think once sometimes talking about it is helpful. Like just getting it out there it's like cleansing you know you feel better about it. But I do think doing the reps showing up and doing it as much as you don't want to and and you're scared of it.

Gen AI As A Strategic Accelerant

Sasha Pilch 27:32

Totally. Okay so we only have three minutes left so this wouldn't be a 2026 podcast unless I talked about gen AI. So can you mention one of the things you're most excited about in terms of how AI is helping with inefficiencies at FIS and like experiences from that have resulted from implementing AI?

Stephanie Ferris 27:54

No, no so I am most excited first of all I think AI is a strategic accelerant. If you're in technology you have to think about AI as a strategic accelerant of your business. It gives you an opportunity to massively transform how you deliver products. It gives you an opportunity to massively to use the data that you have inside your technology it allows you to move at a faster pace. So I'm I think it's a strategic accelerant for FIS. I also think there's a generational moment happening in banking that's going to even help us transform and grow more from an FIS standpoint. I think what I would leave you and your listeners with Sasha and I probably don't have to tell this group that this is the equivalent of you had a computer one day on your desk you didn't have a computer one day and you had a computer the next day that's how big this this opportunity is for all of us. And so I talk to all my folks about make sure lean into it lean it is here to stay it is a transformative technology learn it live it do as much immerse yourself in it take advantage of anything your company has but also you have to embrace it as much like anything um embrace it as much as you've embraced social media um and that and that's how I would probably talk about um AI broadly both in terms of as an employer but also as a person living in the world today.

Sasha Pilch 29:21

I love that Stephanie and um I've heard you speak on another interview about being an um an optimist and having this optimistic view of AI and an example that you gave was like when you started you were the first um starting class to get a laptop and that the previous people up until you did not have a laptop and then when the internet came like imagine how much more effective we've become without the internet and I totally agree with you I think that this is such an exciting pivotal moment and we're gonna look back and be like do you remember when we didn't have AI like exactly fantastic.

Stephanie Ferris 30:03

I can't be more optimistic about it.

Final Takeaway

Sasha Pilch 30:05

Yeah it's great. Okay so we're nearly at the end so um last question what is your favorite book let's do personal and it could be fiction or nonfiction and also a professional business book.

Stephanie Ferris 30:19

Yes personal is to kill a mockingbird um I read it in high school it's still by far my my favorite book love it love it and then a professional um probably good to great i that still resonates with me especially as I'm um you know leading a legacy financial technology provider into greatness so that one is still resonates with me.

Sasha Pilch 30:42

Oh great answers yeah I love to kill a mockingbird and the little girl's name Scout so cute and um yes definitely a timeless business book as well good to great.

Stephanie Ferris 30:52

Okay so we're at time is there any one thing that you want to leave the audience with today no I mean I think you've covered it effectively I think we should all be in fintech extraordinarily optimistic um the future is bright AI is not bringing us all doom and gloom and so I really thank you for having me.

Sasha Pilch 31:14

Thank you so much Stephanie and thank you to our listeners you can find our podcast wherever you get your podcasts and please write us a view a review like and subscribe we'd be so grateful for that thank you everyone