Fiserv CEO Takis Georgakopoulos is moving to slim down the company without rattling the banks that depend on its systems. At Citi’s fintech conference Tuesday, he said Fiserv plans to close more than a dozen smaller business lines that lack strong growth or profit potential and shift clients from two debit networks onto one in the months ahead. The Milwaukee-based business provides account software and payment services to thousands of financial institutions.

The company’s review of its businesses also identified savings for Project Elevate, Fiserv’s cost-cutting program. On Nov. 3, Fiserv doubled its target from $500 million to $1 billion over three years. At the Citi conference, Georgakopoulos said the savings would come in roughly equal parts from A.I., technology simplification and other efficiency measures.

He did not name the business lines or debit networks or give a timeline for the closures. At the conference, he said Fiserv would consider how the changes affect its bank clients and ensure they have suitable solutions but did not explain what those solutions would be.

Why bank migrations matter

Fiserv supplies banks with core software to track account balances and process transactions. When it moves a bank to a new system, customer information must transfer without interrupting banking services.

Whether Fiserv can make that transition smoothly remains to be seen. On a Nov. 3 earnings call, Georgakopoulos said $20 billion Pinnacle Bancorp had gone live on CoreAdvance, Fiserv’s platform for community and regional banks. He did not say whether Pinnacle switched from another provider or what its customers experienced.

The call also offered some detail on how the CEO hopes to make future migrations easier. Georgakopoulos said the company is developing shared components across its banking systems and using A.I. agents in products such as DNA and CoreAdvance to shorten implementation and migration timelines.

During the earnings call, Georgakopoulos described efficiency and customer service as complementary. “I really don’t see those things as working against each other,” he said. “I see them as working synergistically.”

What Georgakopoulos inherited

Georgakopoulos is Fiserv’s third CEO since May 2025. Frank Bisignano took over as CEO in 2020 and left in May 2025 to lead the Social Security Administration. His successor, Mike Lyons, came from PNC, one of Fiserv’s largest customers. He put customer service at the center of his “One Fiserv” plan and launched Project Elevate to cut costs. Lyons left for Truist in June 2026, and Georgakopoulos inherited both priorities.

Georgakopoulos has now been at the helm for about five months. He joined Fiserv in 2024 after working at JPMorgan Chase, where he led global payments for its corporate and investment bank. At Fiserv, he served as chief operating officer and then as co-president overseeing merchant solutions and technology before becoming CEO.

Project Elevate began in late 2025. By May, Fiserv had set a $500 million savings goal. After Georgakopoulos took over in June, he announced a review of the company’s products, technology and operations. That work informed the higher target announced in November.

Much of the additional $500 million in projected savings will come from closing businesses and retiring legacy systems, Georgakopoulos said at the Citi conference. He said those system-related savings may take time to realize because Fiserv must migrate the remaining clients.

The savings plan has involved a reduction in Fiserv’s contractor and employee count by 3,000, including more than 10 percent of senior management, since Georgakopoulos took over. It also includes automating processes and simplifying operations.

At the Citi conference, Georgakopoulos said A.I. could accelerate some parts of the cost-cutting work. “Stuff that we thought would take quarters, even six months ago, now we think is going to take weeks,” he said.

Client losses ease, but revenue lags

Beyond the savings plan, Georgakopoulos is looking to grow Fiserv’s banking business. On the Nov. 3 earnings call, he said Fiserv had lost fewer banking clients year to date. At the same time, he said new banking client wins were up more than 50 percent from a year earlier. He cautioned that those wins were coming from a low base. “The base is much lower than I would have liked, but it’s the right trajectory,” he said.

Georgakopoulos credited improved platform stability and customer service with helping reduce client losses. At the Citi conference, he said banking infrastructure incidents had fallen 75 percent year over year. He said Fiserv had added relationship managers to strengthen client coverage and that investment in platform stability began more than a year ago, before he became CEO.

Banking revenue has yet to reflect the company’s client gains. It fell 5 percent organically from a year earlier, while the broader Financial Solutions segment grew 2 percent. On the Nov. 3 earnings call, Fiserv Chief Financial Officer Paul Todd said improved retention and new client wins could take nine to 12 months to affect revenue. Georgakopoulos said the banking business should trend toward growth in the second half of 2027.

What banks want from Fiserv

Fiserv serves about 3,500 of more than 8,000 U.S. banks and credit unions, Georgakopoulos said at the Citi conference. He said banking sales cycles are longer than those for Fiserv’s large merchant business.

To win more of those institutions, Fiserv is pitching beyond its core account-processing systems. At the Citi conference, Georgakopoulos said banks want better digital banking, useful data and insights, and guidance on deploying A.I. safely. As he put it, “How can you help me grow my business?”

AgentOS, Fiserv’s A.I. platform for banks, is one example of that broader offer. On the Nov. 3 earnings call, Georgakopoulos said nearly 200 banks were in its pipeline and pilot banks were nearing production deployment. Fiserv plans to open the program to more customers in 2027.

The test is whether that interest turns into active clients and revenue while Fiserv moves banks to newer systems without disruptions. “We just need to be much more proactive talking to prospects about those solutions. Historically, we never did that,” Georgakopoulos said at the Citi conference.