Corpay (CPAY) 10-K2021 FY Annual report

Businesses spend an estimated $125 trillion each year with other businesses. In many instances, they lack the proper tools to monitor what is being purchased, and employ manual, paper-based, disparate processes and methods to both approve and make payments for their purchases. This often results in wasted time and money due to unnecessary or unauthorized spending, fraud, receipt collection, data input and consolidation, report generation, reimbursement processing, account reconciliations, employee disciplinary actions, and more.

Digital payments are faster and more secure than paper-based methods such as checks, and provide timely and detailed data which can be utilized to effectively reduce unauthorized purchases and fraud, automate data entry and reporting, and eliminate reimbursement processes. Combining this payment data with analytical tools delivers powerful insights, which managers can use to better run their businesses.

FLEETCOR’s vision is that every payment is digital, every purchase is controlled, and every related decision is informed. Our wide range of modern, digitized solutions generally provides control, reporting, and automation benefits superior to many of the payment methods businesses often used such as cash, paper checks, general purpose credit cards, as well as employee pay and reclaim processes. In addition to delivering meaningful value to our customers, our solutions also share several important and attractive business model characteristics such as:

We are executing on a strategy of optimizing assets, leveraging similar selling methods, and bundling and cross-selling value-added solutions. We continue to enhance our solutions to displace disjointed payment methods, improve customers’ mobile and digital experiences, and extend utility. We actively market and sell to current and prospective customers leveraging a multi-channel, go-to-market approach, which includes comprehensive digital channels, direct sales forces and strategic partner relationships. We supplement our organic growth strategy and sales efforts by pursuing attractive acquisition opportunities, which serve to strengthen and extend our market positions and create value even faster. With a long, proven operating history, FLEETCOR now serves hundreds of thousands of business customers with millions of cardholders making payments to millions of vendors around the world.

FLEETCOR has three reportable segments, North America, International, and Brazil. We report these three segments as they reflect how we organize and manage our global employee base, manage operating performance, contemplate the differing regulatory environments across geographies, and help us isolate the impact of foreign exchange fluctuations on our financial results. However, to help facilitate an understanding of our expansive range of solutions around the world, we describe them in two categories: Expense Management solutions, which help control and monitor employee spending, and Corporate Payments solutions, which simplify and automate vendor payments.

Our Expense Management solutions are purpose-built to provide customers with greater control and visibility of employee spending when compared with less specialized payment methods, such as cash or general-purpose credit cards. Our proprietary processing and card management solutions provide customers with significant capabilities including: customizable user-level controls, detailed transaction reporting, programmable alerts, configurable networks, contract price validation and audit, and tax management and reporting. Our customers can use these data, controls and tools to combat fraud and employee misuse, streamline expense administration and potentially lower their operating costs.

We utilize both proprietary and third-party payment acceptance networks to deliver our Expense Management solutions. In our proprietary networks, which tend to be geographically distinct, transactions are processed on applications and operating systems owned and operated by us, and only at select participating merchants with whom we have contracted directly for acceptance. These proprietary networks generally provide us with better economics, as we control more of the transaction, and richer data

because of how the networks and point of sale software are configured. Third-party networks are operated by independent parties, and tend to be more broadly accepted, which is the primary benefit compared with our proprietary networks. Mastercard and VISA are our primary third-party network partners in North America and Europe, respectively.

We offer Fuel solutions to businesses and government entities who operate vehicle fleets. At the most basic level, we provide the measurement of fuel used and facilitate the payment for that fuel to the merchant, whether that fuel be diesel, gasoline, compressed natural gas, or electricity.

The measurement and payment needs of our customers operating electric vehicles (EV) are similar to those operating traditional, internal combustion vehicles, just centered around electricity usage instead of gas or diesel usage. As we help our customers manage through the transition to EVs, we expect many of them to operate mixed fleets, and will need access to networks of fuel stations, electric charging stations both on the road and at the office, in addition to at-home charging options. Considering the increased complexity of managing a mixed fleet or an all EV fleet, we believe the value of our solutions will endure, regardless of the propulsion method.

We utilize both proprietary and third-party networks to deliver our Fuel solutions. Our proprietary fuel networks are geographically distinct, and may also be unique to specific markets we serve, such as highway-based truck stops with high speed diesel pumps that can quickly refuel long-haul diesel trucks. We are actively expanding our proprietary networks in EV, including investing in EV partner companies, to accommodate EV charging in the U.S., U.K. and Europe. Many of our Fuel solutions also have additional purchasing capabilities as part of our "beyond fuel" program. We can enable the fuel card to allow customers to purchase non-fuel items such as oil, vehicle maintenance supplies and services, and building supplies, but with more control than a general-purpose credit card.

We also provide program management services to major oil companies, leasing companies and fuel marketers, which allow these partners to outsource the sales, marketing, credit, service, and system operations of their branded fuel card portfolios. Our fuel partners include British Petroleum (BP), Arco, Speedway, and Casey's and over 650 fuel marketers of all sizes.

We use proprietary data management and payment processing systems to manage customer billings and reports, which combined with our discounted hotel network, provide customers with potential savings and increased visibility into their lodging costs. The integration of our processing systems with airline logistics and crew management systems enables us to deliver enhanced services to the travel industry vertical.

Our tags may also be used at over 4,100 participating merchant locations to purchase goods and services, other than tolls, such as parking, fuel, car washes, and meals at drive-through restaurants, while in a vehicle. At merchant locations, payment via electronic tags is faster, safer and more secure for customers, which in turn increases loyalty and throughput for merchants and eliminates the handling of cash.

Our Corporate Payments solutions are designed to help businesses streamline the back-office operations associated with making outgoing payments. Companies can save time, cut costs, and manage B2B payment processing more efficiently with our suite of Corporate Payment solutions, including accounts payable (AP) automation, virtual cards, cross-border, and purchasing and T&E cards.

We have built a proprietary merchant acceptance network, which we believe is largest in the industry, that accepts our Virtual Card payments. Our merchant acceptance network is unique from all others, due to the nature of commercial Virtual Card acceptance. Each issuer negotiates directly with the merchant for acceptance, so other issuers’ virtual cards are not interchangeable. This network is managed with proprietary technology that allows us to continuously expand Virtual Card acceptance and optimize the amount of spend we can capture. The scale of this network, coupled with an in-house vendor enrollment service, is a competitive advantage. Our ERP integrations, application programming interface (API) capabilities, strategic vendor enrollment, and transaction management tools enable us to optimize our customers’ electronic payables programs.

Our Virtual Card operates solely on the Mastercard network. Our customers’ ERP systems are directly integrated with our issuing system, and merchants must be enrolled in our proprietary vendor network to accept our Virtual Card solution. This two-sided transaction, where both payor and receiver are both in our network, provides substantial payment security relative to paper checks or ACH.

Trade settlement and payment delivery is facilitated through a global network of correspondent banks, in-country payment gateways and technology providers, enabling us to send payments to recipients in over 200 countries and 145 currencies. Our customers rely on us to deliver personalized service and customer solutions, with a heavy focus on technology. We offer a proprietary trading and payments platform that we can "white label" for financial institutions looking to expand their cross-border payment capability, as well as a suite of API products that enables us to embed our full capability directly within the technology of both customers and partners. By utilizing transaction monitoring and watch list screening systems, we ensure payments are safe, secure, and meet all applicable regulatory requirements.

FLEETCOR provides several other payments solutions that, due to their nature or size, are not considered with our Expense Management and Corporate Payments solutions.

We provide fully integrated gift card program management and processing services to retailers in 60 countries, in both plastic and digital form. The gift cards are issued specifically for each customer under their specific brands and are generally accepted exclusively within their retail network, digitally or in-person.

Our Gift solutions include card design, production and packaging, delivery and fulfillment, card and account management, transaction processing, promotion development and management, website design and hosting, program analytics, and card distribution channel management. Our turnkey solution benefits our customers in the form of brand promotion, cardholder loyalty, increased sales, interest on prepaid balances, and breakage on abandoned card balances.

We actively market and sell our solutions to current and prospective customers leveraging a multi-channel approach. This go-to-market strategy includes comprehensive digital channels, direct sales forces and strategic partner relationships. We have a robust, digital sales platform that enables our sales people to be more efficient by improving their prospecting efforts through web sourced leads. With the shift of customer behavior to the web for much of their consumer purchases, we have built and continue to expand online, end-to-end capability where the customers can buy, onboard and manage their accounts on their own. In our direct sales force channel, we acquire and manage the customer relationship, which has historically been either in-person or via telesales. Our capabilities are also offered through indirect sales channels (e.g., major oil companies and fuel marketers for Fuel, and retail establishments for Tolls) and on a branded or “white label” basis, indirectly through a broad range of resellers and partners across Fuel, Lodging, and Corporate Payments. In doing so, we leverage their sales networks to expand our reach into new customer segments, new industry verticals, and new geographies faster and at a significantly lower cost.

With respect to our Tolls solution, we also place proprietary manned kiosks and unmanned vending machines in areas with high consumer foot traffic, such as shopping malls, to reach consumers. With respect to our Gift solutions, third-party distribution is generally provided by other companies, who are reliant on access to our systems to meet their distribution obligations.

We capitalize on our products’ specialization by deploying product-dedicated sales forces to target specific customer segments. As our solution set has expanded, we are also facilitating cross-selling and bundled product offerings to fully leverage our distribution capabilities, capture more spend and revenue from our existing customer base, and deliver more value to customers which should improve customer loyalty and retention.

We follow detailed application credit review, account management, and collections procedures for all customers of our payment solutions. The credit review includes a combination of quantitative, third-party credit scoring models, and judgmental underwriting based on customer financials. We employ a variety of tools to manage risk in our portfolio, including: billing frequency, payment terms, spending limits, payment methods, delinquency suspension, and security. We use fraud detection programs, including proprietary and third-party solutions, to monitor transactions and prevent misuse. We monitor the credit quality of our portfolio periodically utilizing external credit scores and internal behavior data to identify high risk or deteriorating credit quality accounts. We conduct targeted strategies to minimize exposure to high-risk accounts, including reducing spending limits and payment terms or requiring additional security.

Our primary competition is from financial institutions offering general payment methods, like cash, checks, and general-purpose credit cards. We also compete with specialized competitive offerings from other companies that vary by product category.

In executing on our strategy, we are advantaged by leveraging our competitive strengths:

Our technology provides continuous authorization of transactions, processing of critical account and customer information, and settlement between merchants, issuing companies, and individual commercial entities. We recognize the importance of state-of-the-art, secure, efficient, and reliable technology in our business and have made significant investments in our applications and infrastructure. In 2021, we spent approximately $250 million in capital and operating expenses to operate, protect, and enhance our technology.

We operate several proprietary processing systems that provide features and functionality to run our card programs and solutions, including our card issuing, processing, and information services. Our processing systems also integrate with our proprietary networks, which provide brand awareness and connectivity to our acceptance locations that enables the “end-to-end” card acceptance, data capture, and transaction authorization capabilities of our card programs. Our proprietary processing systems and aggregation software are tailored to meet the unique needs of the individual markets they serve and enable us to create and deliver solutions that serve each of our industry verticals and geographies. Our technology platforms are comprised of four key components, which were primarily developed and are maintained in-house: (1) a core processing platform; (2) specialized software; (3) integrated network capabilities; and (4) a cloud-based architecture with proprietary APIs.

Our technology function is based in the U.S., Europe, and Brazil and has expertise in the management of applications, transaction networks, and infrastructure. We operate application development centers in the U.S., U.K., Netherlands, Russia, Czech Republic, Brazil, and New Zealand. Our distributed application architecture allows us to maintain, administer, and innovate our solutions in a cost-effective and flexible manner. Our purpose-built solutions contain significant intellectual property that differentiates us from our competition.

We continually seek to modernize and evolve our technology solutions through our core IT transformation initiatives. Our IT transformation initiatives are focused on three main pillars: (1) digital strategy; (2) core systems modernization; and (3) data. Our digital strategy is focused on streamlining a digital customer experience across all of our solutions, providing a seamless experience. Additionally, we are investing in modernizing our core transactional systems to make them more resilient, secure, and scalable. Our technology infrastructure is supported by highly-secure data centers, with redundant locations. We operate our primary data centers, located in Atlanta, Georgia; Prague, Czech Republic; Las Vegas, Nevada; Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky; São Paulo, Brazil; Toronto, Canada; and Moscow, Russia.

Additionally, as we develop new solutions and modernize legacy assets, we increasingly leverage cloud services. Through the use of cloud technology and microservices, we are able to modernize our platforms with no disruption to our customers. Finally, data is becoming an ever-increasing part of how the Company and its customers do business. We are focused on investing in our data assets to deliver value for our customers through improved insights to them to better control expenses and mitigate fraud. The use of cloud services provides us with increased flexibility and agility. We use only proven technology and expect no foreseeable capacity limitations.

To provide our services, we collect, use and store sensitive business information and personal information, which may include credit and debit card numbers, bank account numbers, social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, names and addresses, and other types of personal information or sensitive business information. Some of this information is also processed and stored by financial institutions, merchants, and other entities, as well as third-party service providers to whom we outsource certain functions and other agents, which we refer to collectively as, our associated third parties. We may have responsibility to the card networks, financial institutions, and in some instances, our customers, and/or individuals, for our failure or the failure of our associated third parties (as applicable) to protect this information.

We are subject to cybersecurity and information theft risks in our operations, which we seek to manage through cyber and information security programs, training, and insurance coverage. To strengthen our security and cyber defenses, we maintain a defensive in-depth approach to cyber and information security to defend our systems against misuse, intrusions, and cyberattacks and to protect the data we collect. Further, we work with information security and forensics firms and employ advanced technologies to help prevent, investigate and address issues relating to processing system security and availability. We also collaborate with third parties, regulators, and law enforcement, when appropriate, to resolve security incidents and assist in efforts to prevent unauthorized access to our processing systems.

Our systems align with industry standards for security, with multiple industry certifications. Our network is configured with multiple layers of security to isolate our databases from unauthorized access. We use security protocols for communication among applications, and our employees access critical components on a need-only basis. We may not be able to adequately protect our systems or the data we collect from continually evolving cybersecurity risks or other technological risks, which could subject us to liability and damage our reputation. See also, "Risks related to information technology and security" under Item 1A for further discussion of the risks we face in connection with our technology systems and potential data breach and cybersecurity risks facing the Company.

Our culture has evolved through time, as the Company has grown considerably both organically and through acquisitions. Despite FLEETCOR’s expansive size and geographic scope, we seek to retain a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and share a common vision, mission and set of values, which together serve as cornerstones to our “One FLEETCOR” culture. Our values, listed below, are infused in all aspects of FLEETCOR, and guide our employee selection, behavior and interactions with both internal and external stakeholders:

Our focus on diversity, inclusion and belonging (DIB) is part of our successful “One FLEETCOR” culture. As of December 31, 2021, females represented approximately 53% of our global workforce and approximately 22% of our senior leadership team, while minorities comprised approximately 42% of our domestic workforce and approximately 14% of our senior leadership team.

Fostering a culturally diverse and inclusive environment and creating a true sense of belonging are among our top priorities. Our global diversity council, three regional councils and nine employee resource groups (ERGs) are dedicated to building diversity, inclusion and belonging into all aspects of our global operations. Sponsored by the Chairman of the Board and CEO, the councils and ERGs are vital to creating an environment where all employees are able to prosper. Our ERGs allow a safe space for traditionally underrepresented employees to connect and discuss experiences. The ERGs also provide FLEETCOR with perspectives on the unique needs and lived experiences of those who are traditionally underrepresented.

FLEETCOR’s benefits programs are designed to meet the evolving needs of a diverse workforce across the globe. Because we want our employees and their families to thrive, in additional to our regular benefit offerings, we focused on physical and mental well-being in 2021. During the year, we offered free, online fitness classes, sponsored the FLEETCOR Wellbeing Challenge, provided access to employee assistance programs in all regions, and celebrated Mental Health Awareness programs globally.

FLEETCOR offers a variety of high-quality learning opportunities, designed to support employee development and organizational effectiveness. Learning opportunities are available in all geographies at all levels, and incorporate personal, business and leadership skills development with the goal of empowering our organization, creating avenues for closing skill gaps, and enhancing the capabilities of our workforce. Leadership, teamwork, communication, and many other soft skills are vital to our success. We offer a wide variety of career opportunities and paths to advancement through on-the-job coaching, training, and education. We are proud to be a company where an associate can start as an intern and turn it into a successful career.

We continue to develop and refine our people programs based on feedback we receive directly from our workforce, which we gather through an annual survey of all employees globally. The participation rate for our 2021 annual survey was approximately 75%. Our employee engagement score in 2021 remained consistent (1 point lower) than our 2020 results. We are proud of these results during the continued COVID-19 pandemic and amid the great resignation. We believe our employee proposition remains strong and we continue to attract and retain top talent. We continue to share the detailed engagement scores across the organization, and analyze the results to understand differences by geography, demographics, job level, and leader, and to identify opportunities for further improvement. Throughout 2021, we conducted several additional pulse surveys to assess the ongoing engagement of our workforce.

In October 2020, FLEETCOR published its inaugural Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability Report (CRS Report), in which we provided detailed information about the Company’s views and approaches regarding environmental, social and governance issues. We published a 2021 CRS Report in January 2022, which contains information incremental to our inaugural report and is therefore intended to be read in conjunction with that report. Our 2021 CRS Report includes further details related to our global talent strategy, DIB metrics, employee wellness and talent development. We are currently preparing our third annual CRS Report for publication later this year. Our CRS Reports may be accessed electronically at https://investor.fleetcor.com, in the governance section.

Our ability to provide reliable service to customers, cardholders and other network participants depends upon uninterrupted operation of our data centers and call centers as well as third-party labor and services providers. Our business involves processing large numbers of transactions, the movement of large sums of money and the management of large amounts of data. We rely on the ability of our employees, contractors, suppliers, systems and processes to complete these transactions in a secure, uninterrupted and error-free manner.

Our subsidiaries operate in various countries and country specific factors, such as power availability, telecommunications carrier redundancy, embargoes and regulation can adversely impact our information processing by or for our local subsidiaries.

We engage backup facilities for each of our processing centers for key systems and data. However, there could be material delays in fully activating backup facilities depending on the nature of the breakdown, security breach or catastrophic event (such as fire, explosion, flood, pandemic, natural disaster, power loss, telecommunications failure or physical break-in). We have controls and documented measures to mitigate these risks but these mitigating controls might not reduce the duration, scope or severity of an outage in time to avoid adverse effects.

Our business depends heavily on the reliability of proprietary and third-party processing systems. A system outage could adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations, including by damaging our reputation or exposing us to third-party liability. To successfully operate our business, we must be able to protect our processing and other systems from interruption, including from events that may be beyond our control. Events that could cause system interruptions include fire, natural disaster, unauthorized entry, power loss, telecommunications failure, computer viruses, terrorist acts and war. Although we have taken steps to protect against data loss and system failures, there is still risk that we may lose critical data or experience system failures.

Our solutions are based on sophisticated software and computing systems that are constantly evolving. We often encounter delays and cost overruns in developing changes implemented to our systems. In addition, the underlying software may contain undetected errors, viruses or defects. Defects in our software products and errors or delays in our processing of electronic transactions could result in additional development costs, diversion of technical and other resources from our other development efforts, loss of credibility with current or potential customers, harm to our reputation or exposure to liability claims. In addition, we rely on technologies supplied to us by third parties that may also contain undetected errors, viruses or defects that could adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations. Although we attempt to limit our potential liability for warranty claims through disclaimers in our software documentation and limitation of liability provisions in our licenses and other agreements with our customers, we cannot assure that these measures will be successful in limiting our liability.

We electronically receive, process, store and transmit data and sensitive information about our customers and merchants, including bank account information, social security numbers, expense data, and credit card, debit card and checking account numbers. We endeavor to keep this information confidential; however, our websites, networks, information systems, services and technologies may be targeted for sabotage, disruption or misappropriation. The uninterrupted operation of our information systems and our ability to maintain the confidentiality of the customer and consumer information that resides on our systems are critical to the successful operation of our business. Unauthorized access to our networks and computer systems could result in the theft or publication of confidential information or the deletion or modification of records or could otherwise cause interruptions in our service and operations.

Other than a previously disclosed unauthorized access incident during the second quarter of 2018, we are not aware of any material breach of our or our associated third parties’ computer systems, although we and others in our industry are regularly the subject of attempts by bad actors to gain unauthorized access to these computer systems and data or to obtain, change or destroy confidential data (including personal consumer information of individuals) through a variety of means.

Because techniques used to sabotage or obtain unauthorized access to our systems and the data we collect change frequently and may not be recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. Threats to our systems and our associated third parties’ systems can derive from human error, fraud or malice on the part of employees or third parties, or may result from accidental technological failure. Computer viruses can be distributed and could infiltrate our systems or those of our associated third parties. In addition, denial of service or other attacks could be launched against us for a variety of purposes, including to interfere with our services or create a diversion for other malicious activities. Although we believe we have sufficient controls in place to prevent disruption and misappropriation and to respond to such attacks, any inability to prevent security breaches could have a negative impact on our reputation, expose us to liability, decrease market acceptance of electronic transactions and cause our present and potential clients to choose another service provider.

We could also be subject to liability for claims relating to misuse of personal information, such as unauthorized marketing purposes and violation of data privacy laws. For example, we are subject to a variety of U.S. and international statutes, regulations, and rulings relevant to the direct email marketing and text-messaging industries. While we believe we are in compliance with the relevant laws and regulations, if we were ever found to be in violation, our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows could be materially adversely affected. We cannot provide assurance that the contractual requirements related to security and privacy that we impose on our service providers who have access to customer and consumer data will be followed or will be adequate to prevent the unauthorized use or disclosure of data. In addition, we have agreed in certain agreements to take certain protective measures to ensure the confidentiality of customer data. The costs of systems and procedures associated with such protective measures, as well as the cost of deploying additional personnel, training our employees and hiring outside experts, may increase and could adversely affect our ability to compete effectively. Any failure to adequately enforce or provide these protective measures could result in liability, protracted and costly litigation, governmental and card network intervention and fines, remediation costs, and with respect to misuse of personal information of our customers, lost revenue and reputational harm. While we maintain insurance covering certain security and privacy damages and claim expenses we may not carry insurance or maintain coverage sufficient to compensate for all liability and such insurance may not be available for renewal on acceptable terms or at all, and in any event, insurance coverage would not address the reputational damage that could result from a security incident.

In addition, under payment network rules, regulatory requirements, and related obligations, we may be responsible for the acts or failures to act of certain third parties, such as third-party service providers, vendors, partners and others, which we refer to collectively as associated participants. The failure of our associated participants to safeguard cardholder data and other information in accordance with such rules, requirements and obligations could result in significant fines and sanctions and could harm our reputation and deter existing and prospective customers from using our services. We cannot assure you that there are written agreements in place with every associated participant or that such written agreements will ensure the adequate safeguarding of such data or information or allow us to seek reimbursement from associated participants. Any such unauthorized use or disclosure of data or information also could result in litigation that could result in a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The markets for our solutions are highly competitive and characterized by technological change, frequent introduction of new products and services and evolving industry standards. We must respond to the technological advances offered by our competitors and the requirements of regulators and our customers and partners, in order to maintain and improve upon our competitive position and fulfill contractual obligations. We may be unsuccessful in expanding our technological capabilities and developing, marketing, selling or encouraging adoption of new products and services that meet these changing demands, which could jeopardize our competitive position. Similarly, if new technologies are developed that displace our traditional payment card as payment mechanisms for purchase transactions by businesses, we may be unsuccessful in adequately responding to customer practices and our transaction volume may decline. In addition, we regularly engage in significant efforts to upgrade our products, services and underlying technology, which may or may not be successful in achieving broad acceptance or their intended purposes.

The solutions we deliver are designed to process complex transactions and provide reports and other information on those transactions, all at high volumes and processing speeds. Any failure to deliver an effective and secure product or service or any performance issue that arises with a new product or service could result in significant processing or reporting errors or other losses. We may rely on third parties to develop or co-develop our solutions or to incorporate our solutions into broader platforms for the commercial payments industry. We may not be able to enter into such relationships on attractive terms, or at all, and these relationships may not be successful. In addition, partners, some of whom may be our competitors or potential competitors, may choose to develop competing solutions on their own or with third parties.

The novel strain of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and its variants have spread throughout the globe and have negatively impacted the macroeconomic environment, significantly increasing economic uncertainty. The outbreak has resulted in regulatory and other authorities periodically implementing numerous measures to try to contain the virus, such as travel bans and restrictions, quarantines, shelter in place orders, and business shutdowns, as well as uncertainty regarding the scope or enforceability of vaccine mandates in certain jurisdictions. These measures have negatively impacted consumer and business spending and could continue to do so. In addition, these measures have adversely impacted and may further impact our ability, or the cost and expense incurred by us, to attract, retain, and develop our workforce, or otherwise impact our operations and the operations or workforces of our customers, suppliers and business partners. These measures may remain in place or return, as applicable, for significant periods of time and they are likely to continue to adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

The spread of the coronavirus previously caused us to modify our business practices (including employee travel, employee work locations, and cancellation of physical participation in meetings, events and conferences), and subject to variations in infection levels in various jurisdictions, we may take renewed or further actions as may be required by government authorities or that we determine are in the best interests of our employees, customers and business partners. While vaccines are currently being administered around the world, vaccine availability, the distribution of vaccines, efficacy to new strains of the virus and the public's willingness to get vaccinated or receive booster doses could limit their impact and extend the duration of the pandemic. We continue to manage the business as appropriate in order to preserve our financial flexibility during this challenging time. There is no certainty that such measures will be sufficient to mitigate the risks posed by the virus or otherwise be satisfactory to government authorities.

In addition, any ongoing impact of COVID-19 on macroeconomic conditions may impact the proper functioning of financial and capital markets, foreign currency exchange rates, inflation and increasing commodity prices, including fuel prices, interest rates and the ongoing impact of the pandemic on the global supply chain. Even after the COVID-19 global pandemic has subsided, we may continue to experience adverse impacts to our business as a result of any economic recession or depression that has occurred or may occur in the future. The continued disruption of global financial markets as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic could have a negative impact on our ability to access capital in the future.

The extent to which the COVID-19 outbreak impacts our business, results of operations and financial condition will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted, including, but not limited to, the duration and spread of the outbreak, its severity, the actions to contain the virus or treat its impact through vaccines or otherwise, and how quickly and to what extent normal economic and operating conditions can resume. Even after the coronavirus outbreak has subsided, we may continue to experience materially adverse impacts to our business as a result of its global economic impact, including any recession that has occurred or may occur in the future.

There are no comparable recent events which may provide guidance as to the effect of the spread of the coronavirus and a global pandemic, and, as a result, the ultimate impact of the COVID-19 outbreak or a similar health epidemic is highly uncertain and subject to change. We do not yet know the full extent of the impacts on our business, our operations or the global economy as a whole. However, the effects could have a material impact on our results of operations.

A substantial portion of our revenue is based on the volume of payment card transactions by our customers Accordingly, our operating results could be adversely impacted by events or trends that negatively impact the demand for fuel, business-related products and services, or payment card services in general.

For example, our transaction volume is generally correlated with general economic conditions and levels of spending, particularly in the U.S., Europe, Russia, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, and the related amount of business activity in economies in which we operate. Downturns in these economies are generally characterized by reduced commercial activity and, consequently, reduced purchasing of fuel and other business-related products and services by our customers. Similarly, prolonged adverse weather events, travel bans due to medical quarantine (such as the recent responses to the COVID-19 pandemic) or in response to natural catastrophes, especially those that impact regions in which we process a large number and amount of payment transactions, could adversely affect our transaction volumes. Likewise, recent political, investor and industry focus on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change issues may adversely affect the volume of transactions or business operations of the oil companies, merchants and truck stop owners with whom we maintain strategic relationships, which could adversely impact our business. In such event, we may not be able to successfully execute our EV strategy, which could further adversely impact our business.

In addition, our transaction volumes could be adversely affected if businesses do not continue to use, or fail to increase their use of, credit, debit or stored value cards as a payment mechanism for their transactions. Similarly, our transaction volumes could be impacted by adverse developments in the payments industry, such as new legislation or regulation that makes it more difficult for customers to do business, or a well-publicized data security breach that undermines the confidence of the public in electronic payment systems.

We are subject to the credit risk of our customers which range in size from small sole proprietorships to large publicly traded companies. We use various methods to screen potential customers and establish appropriate credit limits, but these methods cannot eliminate all potential credit risks and may not always prevent us from approving customer applications that are not credit-worthy or are fraudulently completed. Changes in our industry, customer demand, and, in relation to our Fuel customers, movement in fuel prices may result in periodic increases to customer credit limits and spending and, as a result, could lead to increased credit losses. We may also fail to detect changes to the credit risk of customers over time. Further, during a declining economic environment (including economic weakness caused by large-scale crises like the COVID-19 pandemic), we may experience increased customer defaults and preference claims by bankrupt customers. Additionally, the counterparties to the derivative financial instruments that we use in our international payments provider business to reduce our exposure to various market risks, including changes in foreign exchange rates, may fail to honor their obligations, which could expose us to risks we had sought to mitigate. This risk includes the exposure generated when we write derivative contracts to our customers as part of our cross-currency payments business, and we typically hedge the net exposure through offsetting contracts with established financial institution counterparties. If a customer becomes insolvent, files for bankruptcy, commits fraud or otherwise fails to pay us, we may be exposed to the value of an offsetting position with such counterparties for the derivatives or may bear financial risk for those receivables where we have offered trade credit. If we fail to adequately manage our credit risks, our bad debt expense could be significantly higher than historic levels and adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition. For the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, our bad debt expense was $37.9 million and $158.5 million, or 3 bps and 15 bps of total billings, respectively.

Our card solutions include a variety of fees and charges associated with transactions, cards, reports, optional services and late payments. Revenues for late fees and finance charges represent 4% of our consolidated revenue for the year ended December 31, 2021. If the users of our cards decrease their transaction activity, or the extent to which they use optional services or pay invoices late, our revenue could be materially adversely affected. In addition, several market factors can affect the amount of our fees and charges, including the market for similar charges for competitive card products and the availability of alternative payment methods such as cash or house accounts. Furthermore, regulators and Congress have scrutinized the electronic payments industry’s pricing, charges and other practices related to its customers. Any restrictions on our ability to price our products and services could materially and adversely affect our revenue.

The market for our solutions is highly competitive, and competition could intensify in the future. Our competitors vary in size and in the scope and breadth of the products and services they offer. Our primary competitors in the North American Fuel solutions are small regional and large independent fleet card providers, major oil companies and petroleum marketers that issue their own fleet cards, and major financial services companies that provide card services to major oil companies and petroleum marketers. Corporate Payments solutions faces a variety of competitors, some of which have greater financial resources, name recognition and scope and breadth of products and services. Competitors in the Lodging solution include travel agencies, online lodging discounters, internal corporate procurement and travel resources, and independent services companies. Our primary competitors in Europe, Australia and New Zealand are independent fleet card providers, major oil companies and petroleum marketers that issue branded fleet cards, and providers of card outsourcing services to major oil companies and petroleum marketers. Our primary competitors in Latin America are independent providers of fleet cards and vouchers for food, fuel, tolls, and transportation and major oil companies and providers of card outsourcing services to major oil companies and petroleum marketers who offer commercial fleet cards.

The most significant competitive factors in our business are the breadth of product and service features, network acceptance size, customer service, payment terms, account management, and price. We may experience competitive disadvantages with respect to any of these factors from time to time as potential customers prioritize or value these competitive factors differently. As a result, a specific offering of our features, networks and pricing may serve as a competitive advantage with respect to one customer and a disadvantage for another based on the customers’ preferences.

Some of our existing and potential competitors have longer operating histories, greater brand name recognition, larger customer bases, more extensive customer relationships or greater financial and technical resources than we do. In addition, our larger competitors may also have greater resources than we do to devote to the promotion and sale of their products and services and to pursue acquisitions. Many of our competitors provide additional and unrelated products and services to customers, such as treasury management, commercial lending and credit card processing, which allow them to bundle their products and services together and present them to existing customers with whom they have established relationships, sometimes at a discount. If

price competition continues to intensify, we may have to increase the incentives that we offer to our customers, decrease the prices of our solutions or lose customers, each of which could adversely affect our operating results. In Fuel solutions, major oil companies, petroleum marketers and large financial institutions may choose to integrate fuel card services as a complement to their existing or complementary card products and services to adapt more quickly to new or emerging technologies, such as electric vehicles, and changing opportunities, standards or customer requirements. To the extent that our competitors are regarded as leaders in specific categories, they may have an advantage over us as we attempt to further penetrate these categories.

Future mergers or consolidations among competitors, or acquisitions of our competitors by large companies may present competitive challenges to our business if their fuel card products and services are effectively integrated and bundled into lower cost sales packages with other widely utilized non-fuel card related products and services.

Overall, increased competition in our markets could result in intensified pricing pressure, reduced profit margins, increased sales and marketing expenses and a failure to increase, or a loss of, market share. We may not be able to maintain or improve our competitive position against our current or future competitors, which could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

The payments technology industry in which we compete is characterized by rapid technological change, new product introductions, evolving industry standards and changing customer needs. In order to remain competitive, we are continually involved in a number of projects, including the development of new platforms, mobile payment applications, e-commerce services and other new offerings emerging in the payments technology industry, including particularly with respect to electric vehicles. These projects carry the risks associated with any development effort, including cost overruns, delays in delivery and performance problems. In the payments technology markets, these risks are even more acute. Any delay in the delivery of new services or the failure to differentiate our services could render our services less desirable to customers, or possibly even obsolete.

We believe during the year ended December 31, 2021, approximately 12% of our consolidated revenue was directly influenced by the absolute price of fuel. Approximately 5% of our consolidated revenue during the year ended December 31, 2021 was derived from transactions where our revenue is tied to fuel price spreads. When our fleet customers purchase fuel, certain arrangements in our Fuel solutions generate revenue as a percentage of the fuel transaction purchase amount and other arrangements generate revenue based on fuel price spreads. The fuel price that we charge to any Fuel customer is dependent on several factors including, among others, the fuel price paid to the fuel merchant, posted retail fuel prices and competitive fuel prices. The significant volatility in fuel prices can impact these revenues by lowering total fuel transaction purchase amounts and tightening fuel price spreads. We experience fuel price spread contraction when the merchant’s wholesale cost of fuel increases at a faster rate than the fuel price we charge to our Fuel customers, or the fuel price we charge to our Fuel customers decreases at a faster rate than the merchant’s wholesale cost of fuel. The volatility is due to many factors outside our control, including new oil production or production slowdowns, supply and demand for oil and gas and market expectations of future supply and demand, political conditions, actions by OPEC and other major oil producing countries, speculative trading, government regulation, weather and general economic conditions. When such volatility leads to a decline in retail fuel prices or a contraction of fuel price spreads, our revenue and operating results could be adversely affected.

The success and growth of our solutions depend on the wide acceptability of such cards when our customers need to use them. As a result, the success of these solutions is in part dependent on our ability to maintain relationships with major oil companies, petroleum marketers, closed-loop fuel and lodging merchants, truck stop operators, airlines and sales channels (each of whom we refer to as our “partners”) and to enter into additional relationships or expand existing arrangements to increase the acceptability of our payment cards. These relationships vary in length from one to eight years for oil companies to one to two years for merchants and may be renegotiated at the end of their respective terms. Due to the highly competitive, and at times exclusive, nature of these relationships, we often must participate in a competitive bidding process to establish or continue the relationships. Such bidding processes may focus on a limited number of factors, including pricing, which may affect our ability to effectively compete for these relationships.

If the various partners with whom we maintain relationships experience bankruptcy, financial distress, or otherwise are forced to contract their operations, our solutions could be adversely impacted. Similarly, because some of our solutions are marketed under the brands of major oil companies, certain other adverse events outside our control, like those companies’ failure to maintain their brands or a decrease in the size of their branded networks may adversely affect our ability to grow our revenue.

The loss of, failure to continue or failure to establish new relationships, or the weakness or decrease in size of companies with whom we maintain relationships, could adversely affect our ability to serve our customers and adversely affect our solutions and operating results.

A portion of our revenue is generated by network processing fees charged to merchants, known as interchange fees, associated with transactions processed using our Mastercard-branded cards. Interchange fee amounts associated with our Mastercard network cards are affected by a number of factors, including regulatory limits in the U.S. and Europe and fee changes imposed by Mastercard. In addition, interchange fees are the subject of intense legal and regulatory scrutiny and competitive pressures in the electronic payments industry, which could result in lower interchange fees generally in the future.

In our Cross-Border solution, we facilitate payment and foreign exchange solutions, primarily cross-border, cross-currency transactions, for small and medium size enterprises and other organizations. Increased regulation and compliance requirements are impacting these businesses by making it more costly for us to provide our solutions or by making it more cumbersome for businesses to do business with us. Any factors that increase the cost of cross-border trade for us or our customers or that restrict, delay, or make cross-border trade more difficult or impractical, such as trade policy (including restrictions arising out of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict) or higher tariffs, could negatively impact our revenues and harm our business. We may also have difficulty establishing or maintaining banking relationships needed to conduct our services due to banks’ policies.

There is increased focus, including from governmental organizations, investors, employees and clients, on ESG issues such as environmental stewardship, climate change, diversity and inclusion, racial justice and workplace conduct. Negative public perception, adverse publicity or negative comments in social media could damage our reputation if we do not, or are not perceived to, adequately address these issues. Any harm to our reputation could impact employee engagement and retention and the willingness of customers and our partners to do business with us. In addition, organizations that provide information to investors on corporate governance and related matters have developed ratings processes for evaluating companies on their approach to ESG matters, and unfavorable ratings of our company or our industries may lead to negative investor sentiment and the diversion of investment to other companies or industries.

We believe that maintaining and enhancing our brands is critical to our customer relationships, and our ability to obtain partners and retain employees. The successful promotion of our brands will depend upon our marketing and public relations efforts, our ability to continue to offer high-quality products and services and our ability to successfully differentiate our solutions from those of our competitors. In addition, future extension of our brands to add new products or services different from our current offerings may dilute our brands, particularly if we fail to maintain our quality standards in these new areas. The promotion of our brands will require us to make substantial expenditures, and we anticipate that the expenditures will increase as our markets become more competitive and we expand into new markets. Even if these activities increase our revenues, this revenue may not offset the expenses we incur. There can be no assurance that our brand promotion activities will be successful.

As a result of our foreign operations, we are subject to risks related to changes in currency rates for revenue generated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. For the year ended December 31, 2021, approximately 37% of our revenue was denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar (primarily, British pound, Brazilian real, Canadian dollar, Russian ruble, Mexican peso, Czech koruna, Euro, Australian dollar and New Zealand dollar). Revenue and profit generated by international operations may increase or decrease compared to prior periods as a result of changes in foreign currency exchange rates. Resulting exchange gains and losses are included in our net income. In addition, a majority of the revenue from our international payments provider business is from exchanges of currency at spot rates, which enable customers to make cross-currency payments. This solution also writes foreign currency forward and option contracts for our customers. The duration of these derivative contracts at inception is generally less than one year. The credit risk associated with our derivative contracts increases when foreign currency exchange rates move against our customers, possibly impacting their ability to honor their obligations to deliver currency to us or to maintain appropriate collateral with us.

Furthermore, we are subject to exchange control regulations that restrict or prohibit the conversion of more than a specified amount of our foreign currencies into U.S. dollars, and, as we continue to expand, we may become subject to further exchange control regulations that limit our ability to freely utilize and transfer currency in and out of particular jurisdictions. These restrictions may make it more difficult to effectively utilize the cash generated by our operations and may adversely affect our financial condition.

We have been an active acquirer in the U.S. and internationally, and, as part of our growth strategy, we expect to seek to acquire businesses, commercial account portfolios, technologies, services and products in the future. We have substantially expanded our overall portfolio of solutions, customer base, headcount and operations through acquisitions. The acquisition and integration of each business involves a number of risks and may result in unforeseen operating difficulties, delays and expenditures in assimilating or integrating the businesses, technologies, products, personnel or operations of the acquired business, all of which may divert resources and management attention otherwise available to grow our existing portfolio. In addition, acquisitions may expose us to geographic or business markets in which we have little or no prior experience, present difficulties in retaining the customers of the acquired business and present difficulties and expenses associated with new regulatory requirements, competition controls or investigations.

In addition, international acquisitions often involve additional or increased risks including difficulty managing geographically separated organizations, systems and facilities, difficulty integrating personnel with diverse business backgrounds, languages and organizational cultures, difficulty and expense introducing our corporate policies or controls and increased expense to comply with foreign regulatory requirements applicable to acquisitions.

Integration of acquisitions could also result in the distraction of our management, the disruption of our ongoing operations or inconsistencies on our services, standards, controls, procedures and policies, any of which could affect our ability to achieve the anticipated benefits of an acquisition or otherwise adversely affect our operations and financial results.

To complete future acquisitions, we may determine that it is necessary to use a substantial amount of our cash or engage in equity or debt financing. If we raise additional funds through further issuances of equity or convertible debt securities, our existing stockholders could suffer significant dilution, and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences and privileges senior to those of holders of our common stock. In addition, we may not be able to obtain additional financing on terms favorable to us, if at all, which could limit our ability to engage in acquisitions. Moreover, we can make no assurances that the anticipated benefits of any acquisition, such as operating improvements or anticipated cost savings, would be realized. Further, an acquisition may negatively affect our operating results because it may require us to incur charges and substantial debt or other liabilities, may cause adverse tax consequences, substantial depreciation and amortization or deferred compensation charges, may require the amortization, write-down or impairment of amounts related to deferred compensation, goodwill and other intangible assets, may include substantial contingent consideration payments or other compensation that reduce our earnings during the quarter in which incurred, or may not generate sufficient financial return to offset acquisition costs.

We have foreign operations in, or provide services for customers in more than 150 countries throughout North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Oceania and Asia. We also expect to seek to expand our operations into various additional countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America as part of our growth strategy.

Some of the countries where we operate, and other countries where we will seek to operate, such as Russia, Brazil and Mexico, have undergone significant political, economic and social change in recent years, and the risk of unforeseen changes in these countries may be greater than in the U.S. In addition, changes in laws or regulations, including with respect to payment service providers, taxation, information technology, data transmission and the Internet, revenues from non-U.S. operations or in the

interpretation of existing laws or regulations, whether caused by a change in government or otherwise, could materially adversely affect our portfolio, operating results and financial condition.

Specifically, the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine is creating substantial uncertainty about the role Russia will play in the global economy in the future. Countries across the globe are instituting sanctions and other penalties against Russia – and those sanctions and penalties are evolving almost daily. We are unable to predict the impact sanctions will have on the global economy. Also, the recent exit of the U.K. from the European Union (often referred to as Brexit) may create significant administrative burdens and additional compliance costs for our European operations by interrupting or effectively terminating U.K.-based licenses that we hold to conduct financial transactions within the European Union. The uncertainty surrounding these events could adversely impact consumer and investor confidence, and the level of consumer purchases of discretionary items and retail products globally.

In addition, conducting and expanding our international operations subjects us to other political, economic, technological, operational and regulatory risks and difficulties that we do not generally face in the U.S. These risks and difficulties could negatively affect our international operations and, consequently, our operating results. Further, operating in international markets requires significant management attention and financial resources. We cannot be certain that the investment and additional resources required to establish, acquire or integrate operations in other countries will produce desired levels of revenue or profitability.

Under certain circumstances, when we fund customer transactions, we may bear the risk of substantial losses due to fraudulent use of our payment solutions. We do not maintain insurance to protect us against such losses. We bear similar risk relating to fraudulent acts of employees or contractors, for which we maintain insurance. However, the conditions or limits of coverage may be insufficient to protect us against such losses.

Criminals are using increasingly sophisticated methods to engage in illegal activities involving financial products, such as skimming and counterfeiting payment cards and identity theft. A single significant incident of fraud, or increases in the overall level of fraud, involving our cards and other products and services, could result in reputational damage to us, which could reduce the use and acceptance of our cards and other payment solutions and services or lead to greater regulation that would increase our compliance costs. Fraudulent activity could also result in the imposition of regulatory sanctions, including significant monetary fines, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our Fuel and Payroll Card solutions are typically subject to seasonal fluctuations in revenues and profit, which are impacted during the first and fourth quarter each year by the weather, holidays in the U.S., Christmas being celebrated in Russia in January, and lower business levels in Brazil due to summer break and the Carnival celebration. Our Gift solutions are typically subject to seasonal fluctuations in revenues as a result of consumer spending patterns. Historically, Gift revenues have been strongest in the third and fourth quarters and weakest in the first and second quarters, as the retail industry has its highest level of activity during and leading up to the Christmas holiday season.

To protect our proprietary technology, we rely on copyright, trade secret, patent and other intellectual property laws and confidentiality agreements with employees and third parties, all of which offer only limited protection. Despite our precautions, it may be possible for third parties to obtain and use without our consent confidential information or infringe on our intellectual property rights, and our ability to police that misappropriation or infringement is uncertain, particularly in countries outside of the U.S. In addition, our confidentiality agreements with employees, vendors, customers and other third parties may not effectively prevent disclosure or use of proprietary technology or confidential information and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of such unauthorized use or disclosure.

Protecting against the unauthorized use of our intellectual property and confidential information is expensive, difficult and not always possible. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce or defend our intellectual property rights, to protect our confidential information, including trade secrets, or to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others. This litigation could be costly and divert management resources, either of which could harm our business, operating results and financial condition. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may not be able to prevent third parties from infringing upon or misappropriating our intellectual property and proprietary information.

We cannot be certain that the steps we have taken will prevent the unauthorized use or the reverse engineering of our proprietary technology. Moreover, others may independently develop technologies that are competitive to ours or infringe our intellectual property. The enforcement of our intellectual property rights also depends on our legal actions against these infringers being successful, and we cannot be sure these actions will be successful, even when our rights have been infringed.

Furthermore, effective patent, trademark, service mark, copyright and trade secret protection may not be available in every country in which we may offer our products and services.

Third parties have in the past, and could in the future claim that our technologies and processes underlying our products and services infringe their intellectual property. In addition, to the extent that we gain greater visibility, market exposure, and add new products and services, we may face a higher risk of being the target of intellectual property infringement claims asserted by third parties. We may, in the future, receive notices alleging that we have misappropriated or infringed a third party’s intellectual property rights. There may be third-party intellectual property rights, including patents and pending patent applications that cover significant aspects of our technologies, processes or business methods. Any claims of infringement or misappropriation by a third party, even those without merit, could cause us to incur substantial defense costs and could distract our management from our business, and there can be no assurance that we will be able to prevail against such claims. Some of our competitors may have the capability to dedicate substantially greater resources to enforcing their intellectual property rights and to defending claims that may be brought against them than we do. Furthermore, a party making such a claim, if successful, could secure a judgment that requires us to pay substantial damages, potentially including treble damages if we are found to have willfully infringed a patent. A judgment could also include an injunction or other court order that could prevent us from offering our products and services. In addition, we might be required to seek a license for the use of a third party’s intellectual property, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Alternatively, we might be required to develop non-infringing technology, which could require significant effort and expense and might ultimately not be successful.

Third parties may also assert infringement claims against our customers relating to their use of our technologies or processes. Any of these claims might require us to defend potentially protracted and costly litigation on their behalf, regardless of the merits of these claims, because under certain conditions we may agree to indemnify our customers from third-party claims of intellectual property infringement. If any of these claims succeed, we might be forced to pay damages on behalf of our customers, which could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

Finally, we use open source software in connection with our technology and services. Companies that incorporate open source software into their products, from time to time, face claims challenging the ownership of open source software. As a result, we could be subject to suits by parties claiming ownership of what we believe to be open source software. Open source software is also provided without warranty, and may therefore include bugs, security vulnerabilities or other defects for which we have no recourse or recovery. Some open source software licenses require users of such software to publicly disclose all or part of the source code to their software and/or make available any derivative works of the open source code on unfavorable terms or at no cost. While we monitor the use of open source software in our technology and services and try to ensure that none is used in a manner that would require us to disclose the source code to the related technology or service, such use could inadvertently occur and any requirement to disclose our proprietary source code could be harmful to our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our success depends, in part, on our executive officers and other key personnel. Our senior management team has significant industry experience and would be difficult to replace. The market for qualified individuals is competitive, especially in certain fields, including information technology, and we may not be able to attract and retain qualified personnel or candidates to replace or succeed members of our senior management team or other key personnel. The loss of key personnel could materially adversely affect our business.

The electronic payments industry is subject to increasing regulation in the U.S. and internationally. Domestic and foreign government regulations impose compliance obligations on us and restrictions on our operating activities, which can be difficult to administer because of their scope, mandates and varied requirements. We are subject to government regulations covering a number of different areas, including, among others: interest rate and fee restrictions; credit access and disclosure requirements; licensing and registration requirements; collection and pricing regulations; compliance obligations; security, privacy and data breach requirements; identity theft protection programs; and AML compliance programs. While a large portion of these regulations focuses on individual consumer protection, legislatures and regulators continue to consider whether to include business customers, especially smaller business customers, within the scope of these regulations. As a result, new or expanded regulation focusing on business customers or changes in interpretation or enforcement of regulations may have an adverse effect on our business and operating results, due to increased compliance costs and new restrictions affecting the terms under which we offer our products and services.

In addition, certain of our subsidiaries are subject to regulation under the BSA by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and must comply with applicable AML requirements, including implementation of an effective AML program. Our business in Canada is also subject to the PCMLTFA, which is a corollary to the BSA. Changes in this regulatory environment,

including changing interpretations and the implementation of new or varying regulatory requirements by the government, may significantly affect or change the manner in which we currently conduct some aspects of our business.

As a service provider to certain of our bank sponsors, we are subject to direct supervision and examination by the CFPB, in connection with certain of our products and services. CFPB rules, examinations and enforcement actions may require us to adjust our activities and may increase our compliance costs. In addition, our bank partners are subject to regulation by federal and state banking authorities and, as a result, could pass through some of those compliance obligations to us or alter the extent or the terms of their dealings with us in ways that may have adverse consequences for our business.

Many of these laws and regulations are evolving, unclear and inconsistent across various jurisdictions, and ensuring compliance with them is difficult and costly. With increasing frequency, federal and state regulators are holding businesses like ours to higher standards of training, monitoring and compliance, including monitoring for possible violations of laws by our customers and people who do business with our customers while using our products. If we fail or are unable to comply with existing or changed government regulations in a timely and appropriate manner, we may be subject to injunctions, other sanctions or the payment of fines and penalties, and our reputation may be harmed, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

For more information about laws, regulations and enforcement activities that may adversely affect our products and services and the markets in which we operate, see “Business- Regulatory.”

Rules adopted under the Dodd-Frank Act by the CFTC, provisions of the European Market Infrastructure Regulation and its technical standards, as well as derivative reporting in Canada and the U.S., have subjected certain of the foreign exchange derivative contracts we offer to our customers as part of our Cross-Border solutions to reporting, record keeping, and other requirements. Additionally, certain foreign exchange derivatives transactions we may enter into in the future may be subject to centralized clearing requirements, or may be subject to margin requirements in the U.S., U.K., and European Union or other jurisdictions.

Our compliance with these requirements has resulted, and may continue to result, in additional costs to our business and may impact our international payments provider business operations. Furthermore, our failure to comply with these requirements could result in fines and other sanctions, as well as necessitate a temporary or permanent cessation to some or all of our derivative related activities. Any such fines, sanctions or limitations on our business could adversely affect our operations and financial results. Additionally, the regulatory regimes for derivatives in the U.S., U.K., and European Union, such as under the Dodd-Frank Act and the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) are continuing to evolve and changes to such regimes, our designation under such regimes, or the implementation of new rules under such regimes, such as future registration requirements and increased regulation of derivative contracts, may result in additional costs to our business. Other jurisdictions outside the U.S., U.K., and the European Union are considering, have implemented, or are implementing regulations similar to those described above and these may result in greater costs to us as well.

Governmental bodies in the U.S. and abroad have adopted, or are considering the adoption of, laws and regulations restricting the transfer of, and requiring safeguarding of, non-public personal information. For example, in the U.S., all financial institutions must undertake certain steps to help protect the privacy and security of consumer financial information. In connection with providing services to our clients, we are required by regulations and arrangements with payment networks, our sponsor banks and certain clients to provide assurances regarding the confidentiality and security of non-public consumer information. These arrangements require periodic audits by independent companies regarding our compliance with industry standards such as PCI standards and also allow for similar audits regarding best practices established by regulatory guidelines. The compliance standards relate to our infrastructure, components, and operational procedures designed to safeguard the confidentiality and security of non-public consumer personal information received from our customers. Our ability to maintain compliance with these standards and satisfy these audits will affect our ability to attract and maintain business in the future. If we fail to comply with these regulations, we could be exposed to suits for breach of contract or to governmental proceedings. In addition, our client relationships and reputation could be harmed, and we could be inhibited in our ability to obtain new clients. If more restrictive privacy laws or rules are adopted by authorities in the future on the federal or state level or internationally, our compliance costs may increase, our opportunities for growth may be curtailed by our compliance capabilities or reputational harm and our potential liability for security breaches may increase, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are aware of the increasing focus of local, state, regional, national and international regulatory bodies on GHG emissions and climate change issues. Legislation to regulate GHG emissions has periodically been introduced in the U.S. Congress, and there has been a wide-ranging policy debate, both in the U.S. and internationally, regarding the impact of these gases and possible means for their regulation. Several states and geographic regions in the U.S. have adopted legislation and regulations to reduce emissions of GHGs. Additional legislation or regulation by these states and regions, the EPA, and/or any international agreements to which the U.S. may become a party, that control or limit GHG emissions or otherwise seek to address climate change could adversely affect our partners’ and merchants’ operations, and therefore ours. See “Our fleet card business is dependent on several key strategic relationships, the loss of which could adversely affect our operating results.” and “If we are unable to maintain and expand our merchant relationships, our closed loop fleet card and lodging card businesses may be adversely affected.” Because our business depends on the level of activity in the oil industry, existing or future laws or regulations related to GHGs and climate change, including incentives to conserve energy or use alternative energy sources, could have a negative impact on our business if such laws or regulations reduce demand for fuel. In such event, we may not be able to successfully execute our electric vehicle strategy, which could further adversely affect our business.

In addition to the regulatory efforts described above, there have also been efforts in recent years aimed at the investment community, including investment advisors, sovereign wealth funds, public pension funds, universities and other groups, promoting the divestment of fossil fuel equities as well as to pressure lenders and other financial services companies to limit or curtail activities with companies engaged in the extraction of fossil fuel reserves. If these efforts are successful, our ability to access capital markets may be limited and our stock price may be negatively impacted.

Members of the investment community have recently increased their focus on sustainability practices with regard to the oil and gas industry, including practices related to GHGs and climate change. An increasing percentage of the investment community considers sustainability factors in making investment decisions, and an increasing number of our partners and merchants consider sustainability factors in awarding work. If we are unable to successfully address sustainability enhancement, we may lose partners or merchants, our stock price may be negatively impacted, our reputation may be negatively affected, and it may be more difficult for us to effectively compete.

In the course of our business we contract with domestic and foreign government entities, including state and local government customers, as well as federal government agencies. As a result, we are subject to various laws and regulations that apply to companies doing business with federal, state and local governments. The laws relating to government contracts differ from other commercial contracting laws and our government contracts may contain pricing terms and conditions that are not common among commercial contracts. In addition, we may be subject to investigation from time to time concerning our compliance with the laws and regulations relating to our government contracts. Our failure to comply with these laws and regulations may result in suspension of these contracts or administrative or other penalties.

We are subject to claims and a number of judicial and administrative proceedings in the ordinary course of our operations, including employment-related disputes, contract disputes, intellectual property disputes, government inquiries, investigations, audits and regulatory proceedings, customer disputes and tort claims. Responding to proceedings may be difficult and expensive, and we may not prevail. In some proceedings, the claimant seeks damages as well as other relief, which, if granted, would require expenditures on our part or changes in how we conduct business. There can be no certainty that we will not ultimately incur charges in excess of presently established or future financial accruals or insurance coverage, or that we will prevail with respect to such proceedings. Regardless of whether we prevail or not, such proceedings could have a material adverse effect on our business, reputation, financial condition and results of operations. Further, these types of matters could divert our management’s attention and other resources away from our business.In addition, from time to time, we have had, and expect to continue to receive, inquiries from regulatory bodies and administrative agencies relating to the operation of our business. Any potential claims or any such inquiries or potential claims have resulted in, and may continue to result in, various audits, reviews and investigations, which can be time consuming and expensive. These types of inquiries, audits, reviews, and investigations could result in the institution of administrative or civil proceedings, sanctions and the payment of fines and penalties, various forms of injunctive relief and redress, changes in personnel, and increased review and scrutiny by customers, regulatory authorities, the media and others, which could be significant and could have a material adverse effect on our business, reputation, financial condition and results of operations.

As we continue to expand our business internationally, we may continue to expand into certain foreign countries, particularly those with developing economies, where companies often engage in business practices that are prohibited by U.S., U.K. and other foreign regulations, including the FCPA, the U.K. Bribery Act, Canada’s PCMLTFA, and Australia’s AML/CTF Act. These laws and regulations generally prohibit and our employees, consultants and agents from bribing, being bribed or making

other prohibited payments to government officials or other persons to obtain or retain business or gain some other business advantage. We have implemented policies to discourage such practices; however, there can be no assurances that all of our employees, consultants and agents, including those that may be based in or from countries where practices that violate these laws may be customary, will not take actions in violation of our policies for which we may be ultimately responsible.

In addition, we are subject to AML laws and regulations, including the BSA. Among other things, the BSA requires money services businesses (such as money transmitters and providers of prepaid access) to develop and implement risk-based AML programs, verify the identity of our customers, report large cash transactions and suspicious activity, and maintain transaction records.

We are also subject to certain economic and trade sanctions programs that are administered by OFAC, which prohibit or restrict transactions to or from or dealings with specified countries, their governments, and in certain circumstances, their nationals, and with individuals and entities that are specially designated nationals of those countries, narcotics traffickers, and terrorists or terrorist organizations. Other group entities may be subject to additional foreign or local sanctions requirements in other relevant jurisdictions.

Similar AML and counter-terrorist financing and proceeds of crime laws apply to movements of currency and payments through electronic transactions and to dealings with persons specified in lists maintained by the country equivalent to OFAC lists in several other countries and require specific data retention obligations to be observed by intermediaries in the payment process. Our businesses in those jurisdictions are subject to those data retention obligations.

Violations of these laws and regulations may result in severe criminal or civil sanctions and, in the U.S., suspension or debarment from U.S. government contracting. Likewise, any investigation of any potential violations of these laws and regulations by U.S. or foreign authorities could also have an adverse impact on our reputation and operating results. In addition, we cannot predict the nature, scope or effect of future regulatory requirements to which our international operations might be subject or the manner in which existing laws and regulations might be administered or interpreted.

At December 31, 2021, we had approximately $6.0 billion of debt outstanding under our Credit Facility and Securitization Facility. In addition, we are permitted under our credit agreement to incur additional indebtedness, subject to specified limitations. Our indebtedness currently outstanding, or as may be outstanding if we incur additional indebtedness, could have important consequences, including the following:

In addition, we and our subsidiaries may incur substantial additional indebtedness in the future, including through our Securitization Facility. Although our credit agreements contain restrictions on the incurrence of additional indebtedness, these restrictions are subject to a number of significant qualifications and exceptions, and under certain circumstances, the amount of additional indebtedness that could be incurred in compliance with these restrictions could be substantial. If new debt is added to our existing debt levels, the related risks that we will face would increase.

The majority of our indebtedness bears interest at a variable rate based on LIBOR. We have entered into hedging instruments to manage a portion of our exposure to fluctuations in the LIBOR benchmark interest rate, the last of which expires in December 2023. Effective January 1, 2022, the publication of LIBOR on a representative basis ceased for the one-week and two-month USD LIBOR settings and all sterling, yen, euros, and Swiss franc LIBOR settings. All other remaining USD LIBOR settings will cease July 1, 2023. In connection with the sunset of certain LIBOR reference rates occurring at the end of 2021, we have amended the Credit Agreement to provide for a transition from LIBOR to the Sterling Overnight Index Average Reference Rate (“SONIA”) plus a SONIA adjustment of 0.0326% for sterling borrowings, the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (“EURIBOR”) for euro borrowings, and the Tokyo Interbank Offer Rate (“TIBOR”) for yen borrowings. We continue to monitor developments related to the upcoming transition from USD LIBOR to an alternative benchmark reference rate after June 30, 2023. The Alternative Reference Rates Committee has proposed the Secured Overnight Financing Rate ("SOFR") as its recommended alternative to USD LIBOR, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York began publishing SOFR rates in April 2018. At this time, the effects of the phase out of USD LIBOR and the adoption of alternative benchmark rates have not been fully determined. A failure to properly transition away from USD LIBOR could adversely affect the Company’s borrowing costs or expose the Company to various financial, operational and regulatory risks, which could affect the Company’s results of operations and cash flows.

Our balance sheet includes goodwill and intangible assets that represent approximately 55% of our total assets at December 31, 2021. These assets consist primarily of goodwill and identified intangible assets associated with our acquisitions, which may increase in the future in connection with new acquisitions. Under current accounting standards, we are required to amortize certain intangible assets over the useful life of the asset, while goodwill and indefinite lived intangible assets are not amortized. On at least an annual basis, we assess whether there have been impairments in the carrying value of goodwill and indefinite lived intangible assets. If the carrying value of the asset is determined to be impaired, it is written down to fair value by a charge to operating earnings, which could materially negatively affect our operating results and financial condition.

On January 9, 2019, a similar shareholder derivative complaint was filed in the Superior Court of Gwinnett County, Georgia (“State Derivative Action”), which was stayed pending a ruling on motions for summary judgment in the shareholder class action, notice a settlement has been reached in the shareholder class action, or until otherwise agreed by the parties. On the parties’ joint motion, the court has continued the stay of the State Derivative Action “pending further developments in the first-filed Federal Derivative Action.” The defendants dispute the allegations in the derivative complaints and intend to vigorously defend against the claims.

We currently expect to retain all future earnings, if any, for use in the operation and expansion of our business. We have never declared or paid any dividends on our common stock and do not anticipate paying cash dividends to holders of our common stock in the foreseeable future. In addition, our credit agreements restrict our ability to pay dividends. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend upon, among other factors, our results of operations, financial condition, capital requirements and covenants in our existing financing arrangements and any future financing arrangements.

On January 25, 2022, the Board increased the aggregate size of the Program by $1.0 billion, to $6.1 billion. In January and February 2022, 1,510,027 shares were repurchased for an aggregate purchase price of $360.8 million, of which 1,066,015 shares with an aggregate purchase price of $256.5 million were repurchased pursuant to a 10b5-1 plan. As of March 1, 2022, the Company has up to $1.3 billion available under the Program for future repurchases of its common stock.

Any stock repurchases may be made at times and in such amounts as deemed appropriate. The timing and amount of stock repurchases, if any, will depend on a variety of factors including the stock price, market conditions, corporate and regulatory requirements, and any additional constraints related to material inside information the Company may possess. Any repurchases have been and are expected to be funded by a combination of available cash flow from the business, working capital and debt.

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and related notes appearing elsewhere in this report. In addition to historical information, this discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from management’s expectations. Factors that could cause such differences include, but are not limited to, those identified below and those described in Item 1A “Risk Factors” appearing elsewhere in this report. All foreign currency amounts that have been converted into U.S. dollars in this discussion are based on the exchange rate as reported by Oanda for the applicable periods.

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations generally discusses 2021 and 2020 items and year-over-year comparisons between 2021 and 2020. A detailed discussion of 2020 items and year-over-year comparisons between 2020 and 2019 that are not included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K can be found in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Part II, Item 7 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020.

FLEETCOR’s vision is that every payment is digital, every purchase is controlled, and every related decision is informed. Digital payments are faster and more secure than paper-based methods such as checks, and provide timely and detailed data which can be utilized to effectively reduce unauthorized purchases and fraud, automate data entry and reporting, and eliminate reimbursement processes. Combining this payment data with analytical tools delivers powerful insights, which managers can use to better run their businesses. Our wide range of modern, digitized solutions generally provides control, reporting, and automation benefits superior to many of the payment methods businesses often used, such as cash, paper checks, general purpose credit cards, as well as employee pay and reclaim processes.

Our revenue is generally reported net of the cost for underlying products and services purchased through our payment products. In this report, we refer to this net revenue as “revenue". See “Results of Operations” for additional segment information.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact various aspects of the world economy and our customers. The extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our business operations, financial results, and liquidity into 2022 will depend on numerous evolving factors that we may not be able to accurately predict or assess, including the duration and scope of the pandemic and the geographies most affected; vaccine availability globally, the distribution of the vaccines, efficacy to new strains of the virus and the public's willingness to get vaccinated or receive booster doses, including potential disruptions impacting our suppliers and vendors resulting, directly or indirectly, from vaccine mandates and/or vaccine hesitancy; our response to the continued impact of the pandemic; the negative impact it has on global and regional economies and general economic activity, including the duration and magnitude of its impact on unemployment rates and business spending levels; its impact on our ability, or the cost and expense incurred by us, to successfully attract, retain and develop our workforce, its short- and longer-term impact on the levels of consumer confidence; the ability of our suppliers, vendors and customers to successfully address the continued impacts of the pandemic; and actions governments, businesses and individuals take in response to the pandemic; and how quickly economies recover after the pandemic subsides.

Adjusted net income and adjusted net income per diluted share are supplemental non-GAAP financial measures of operating performance. See the heading entitled “Management’s Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures” for more information and a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measure to the most directly comparable financial measure calculated in accordance with GAAP. We use adjusted net income and adjusted net income per diluted share to eliminate the effect of items that we do not consider indicative of our core operating performance on a consistent basis.

FLEETCOR offers a variety of business payment solutions that help to simplify, automate, secure, digitize and effectively control the way businesses manage and pay their expenses. We provide our payment solutions to our business, merchant, consumer and payment network customers in more than 150 countries around the world today, although we operate primarily in 3 geographies, with approximately 87% of our business in the U.S., Brazil, and the U.K. Our customers may include commercial businesses (obtained through direct and indirect channels), partners for whom we manage payment programs, as well as individual consumers.

FLEETCOR has three reportable segments, North America, International, and Brazil. We report these three segments as they reflect how we organize and manage our global employee base, manage operating performance, contemplate the differing regulatory environments across geographies, and help us isolate the impact of foreign exchange fluctuations on our financial results. However, to help facilitate an understanding of our expansive range of solutions around the world, we describe them in two categories: Expense Management solutions, which help control and monitor employee spending, and Corporate Payments solutions, which simplify and automate vendor payments.

Our Expense Management solutions (Fuel, Tolls, and Lodging) are purpose-built to provide customers with greater control and visibility of employee spending when compared with less specialized payment methods, such as cash or general-purpose credit cards. Our Corporate Payments solutions are designed to help businesses streamline the back-office operations associated with making outgoing payments. Companies save time, cut costs, and manage B2B payment processing more efficiently with our suite of corporate payment solutions, including accounts payable (AP) automation, virtual cards, cross-border, and purchasing and T&E cards. FLEETCOR provides several other payments solutions that, due to their nature or size, are not considered within our Corporate Payments and Expense Management solutions.

We generate revenue in our Fuel solutions through a variety of program fees, including transaction fees, card fees, network fees and charges, as well as from interchange. These fees may be charged as fixed amounts, costs plus a mark-up, based on a percentage of the transaction purchase amounts, or a combination thereof. Our programs also include other fees and charges associated with late payments and based on customer credit risk.

In our Corporate Payments solutions, the primary measure of volume is spend, the dollar amount of payments processed on behalf of customers through our various networks. We primarily earn revenue from the difference between the amount charged to the customer and the amount paid to the third party for a given transaction, as interchange or spread revenue. Our programs may also charge fixed fees for access to the network and ancillary services provided.

In our Tolls solution, the relevant measure of volume is average monthly tags active during the period. We primarily earn revenue from fixed fees for access to the network and ancillary services provided. We also earn interchange on certain non-toll products.

In our Lodging solutions, we primarily earn revenue from the difference between the amount charged to the customer and the amount paid to the hotel for a given transaction and commissions paid by hotels. We may also charge fees for access to the network and ancillary services provided.

In our Gift solutions, we primarily earn revenue from the processing of gift card transactions sold by our customers to end users, as well as from the sale of the plastic cards. We may also charge fixed fees for ancillary services provided.

The remaining revenues represents other products that due to their nature or size, are not considered primary products. These include telematics offerings, fleet maintenance, food and transportation employee benefits related offerings, payroll cards and long-haul transportation services.

Organic revenue growth is a supplemental non-GAAP financial measure of operating performance. Organic revenue growth is calculated as revenue growth in the current period adjusted for the impact of changes in the macroeconomic environment (to include fuel price, fuel price spreads and changes in foreign exchange rates) over revenue in the comparable prior period adjusted to include or remove the impact of acquisitions and/or divestitures and non-recurring items that have occurred subsequent to that period. See the heading entitled “Management’s Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures” for more information and a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measure to the most directly comparable financial measure calculated in accordance with GAAP. We believe that organic revenue growth on a macro-neutral, one-time item, and consistent acquisition/divestiture/non-recurring item basis is useful to investors for understanding the performance of FLEETCOR.

Revenue per relevant key performance indicator (KPI), which may include transaction, spend volume, monthly tags, room nights, or other metrics, is derived from the various revenue types as discussed above and can vary based on geography, the relevant merchant relationship, the payment product utilized and the types of products or services purchased, the mix of which would be influenced by our acquisitions, organic growth in our business, and the overall macroeconomic environment, including fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, fuel prices and fuel price spreads. Revenue per KPI per customer may change as the level of services we provide to a customer increases or decreases, as macroeconomic factors change and as

adjustments are made to merchant and customer rates. See “Results of Operations” for further discussion of transaction volumes and revenue per transaction.

NM - not meaningful

Our consolidated revenues were $2,833.7 million in 2021, an increase of $444.9 million, or 18.6%, from $2,388.9 million in 2020. Organically, consolidated revenues increased by approximately 12%. Consolidated revenues and organic growth increased primarily due to increases in transaction volume as the business recovered from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of incremental new sales. The increase was also due to the impact of acquisitions completed in 2020 and 2021 of approximately $114 million and the positive impact of the macroeconomic environment.

Although we cannot precisely measure the impact of the macroeconomic environment, in total we believe it had a positive impact on our consolidated revenue for 2021 over 2020 of approximately $26 million, driven primarily by the favorable impact of fuel prices of $53 million and favorable changes in foreign exchange rates of approximately $18 million. These increases were partially offset by unfavorable fuel price spreads of approximately $46 million.

North America segment revenues were $1,921.1 million in 2021, an increase of $339.5 million, or 21.5%, from $1,581.5 million in 2020. Organically, North America segment revenues increased by approximately 13%. North America revenues and organic growth increased primarily due to increases in transaction volume as the business recovered from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of incremental new sales. The increase in North America revenues was also due to the impact of acquisitions completed in 2020 and 2021 of approximately $112 million and the positive impact of the macroeconomic environment.

Although we cannot precisely measure the impact of the macroeconomic environment, in total we believe it had a positive impact on our North America segment revenues for 2021 over 2020 of approximately $12 million, driven primarily by the favorable impact of fuel prices of approximately $47 million and favorable changes in foreign exchange rates of approximately $11 million in our cross-border payments business. These increases were partially offset by unfavorable fuel price spreads of approximately $46 million.

Brazil segment revenues were $368.1 million in 2021, an increase of $23.8 million or 6.9%, from $344.2 million in 2020. Organically, Brazil segment revenues increased by approximately 13%. Brazil revenues and organic growth increased primarily due to increases in toll tags sold as the business recovered from the effects of COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of incremental new sales. Organic growth was partially offset by the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange rates of approximately $19 million for 2021 over 2020.

International segment revenues were $544.6 million in 2021, an increase of $81.5 million, or 17.6%, from $463.1 million in 2020. Organically, International segment revenues increased by approximately 10%. International revenues and organic growth increased primarily due to increases in transaction volume as the business recovered from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of incremental new sales. Although we cannot precisely measure the impact of the macroeconomic environment, in total we believe it had a positive impact on our International segment revenues for 2021 over 2020 of approximately $33 million, driven primarily by favorable changes in foreign exchange rates of approximately $27 million primarily in our U.K. business, and the favorable impact of fuel prices of approximately $6 million.

earned on customer deposits and cash balances in certain foreign jurisdictions. The average interest rates paid on borrowings under our Credit Facility, excluding the related unused credit facility fees and swaps was as follows in 2021 and 2020.

The average unused facility fee for the Credit Facility excluding the revolving D facility was 0.30% and 0.29% in 2021 and 2020, respectively.

On January 22, 2019, we entered into three interest rate swap contracts. The objective of these interest rate swap contracts is to reduce the variability of cash flows in the previously unhedged interest payments associated with $2 billion of variable rate debt, tied to the one month LIBOR benchmark interest rate. During 2021, as a result of these swaps, we incurred additional interest expense of approximately $50 million or 2.46% over the average LIBOR rates on $2 billion of borrowings. In January 2022, $1.0 billion of our interest rate swaps matured.

For the purpose of segment operating results, we calculate segment operating income by subtracting segment operating expenses from segment revenue. Segment operating margin is calculated by dividing segment operating income by segment revenue.

Our principal liquidity requirements are to service and repay our indebtedness, make acquisitions of businesses and commercial account portfolios, repurchase shares of our common stock and meet working capital, tax and capital expenditure needs.

We also utilize an accounts receivable Securitization Facility to finance a majority of our domestic receivables, to lower our cost of borrowing and more efficiently use capital. We generate and record accounts receivable when a customer makes a purchase from a merchant using one of our card products and generally pay merchants before collecting the receivable. As a result, we utilize the Securitization Facility as a source of liquidity to provide the cash flow required to fund merchant payments while we collect customer balances. These balances are primarily composed of charge balances, which are typically billed to the customer on a weekly, semimonthly or monthly basis, and are generally required to be paid within 14 days of billing. We also consider the undrawn amounts under our Securitization Facility and Credit Facility as funds available for working capital purposes and acquisitions. At December 31, 2021, we had no additional liquidity under our Securitization Facility.

The Company has determined that outside basis differences associated with our investment in foreign subsidiaries would not result in a material deferred tax liability, and consistent with our assertion that these amounts continue to be indefinitely reinvested, have not recorded incremental income taxes for the additional outside basis differences.

We cannot assure you that our assumptions used to estimate our liquidity requirements will remain accurate due to the unprecedented nature and unpredictability of the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic. As a consequence, our estimates of the duration of the pandemic and the severity of the impact on our future earnings and cash flows could change and have a material impact on our results of operations and financial condition.

The following table summarizes our cash flows for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020.

Our capital expenditures were $111.5 million in 2021, an increase of $33.1 million or 42.2%, from $78.4 million in 2020. The increased size of the business due to acquisitions, as well as continued investments in technology, resulted in an increase in capital spending.

FLEETCOR Technologies Operating Company, LLC, and certain of our domestic and foreign owned subsidiaries, as designated co-borrowers (the “Borrowers”), are parties to a $6.41 billion Credit Agreement (the “Credit Agreement”), with Bank of America, N.A., as administrative agent, swing line lender and local currency issuer, and a syndicate of financial institutions (the “Lenders”), which has been amended multiple times. The Credit Agreement provides for senior secured credit facilities (collectively, the “Credit Facility”) consisting of a revolving credit facility in the amount of $1.285 billion, a term loan A facility in the amount of $3.225 billion and a term loan B facility in the amount of $1.9 billion as of December 31, 2021. The revolving credit facility consists of (a) a revolving A credit facility in the amount of $800 million, with sublimits for letters of credit and swing line loans, (b) a revolving B facility in the amount of $450 million for borrowings in U.S. Dollars, Euros,

Interest on amounts outstanding under the Credit Agreement (other than the term loan B) accrues as follows: For loans denominated in U.S. Dollars, Australian Dollars or New Zealand Dollars, based on the British Bankers Association LIBOR Rate (the “Eurocurrency Rate”), in British Pounds, based on the Sterling Overnight Index Average Reference Rate (“SONIA”) plus a SONIA adjustment of 0.0326%, in Euros, based on the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (“EURIBOR”), or in Japanese Yen, at the Tokyo Interbank Offer Rate (“TIBOR”) plus a margin based on a leverage ratio, or our option (for U.S. Dollar borrowings only), the Base Rate (defined as the rate equal to the highest of (a) the Federal Funds Rate plus 0.50%, (b) the prime rate announced by Bank of America, N.A., or (c) the Eurocurrency Rate plus 1.00%) plus a margin based on a leverage ratio. Interest on the term loan B facility accrues based on the Eurocurrency Rate plus 1.75% for Eurocurrency Loans and at the Base Rate plus 0.75% for Base Rate Loans. In addition, the Company pays a quarterly commitment fee at a rate per annum ranging from 0.25% to 0.35% of the daily unused portion of the credit facility.

At December 31, 2021, the interest rate on the term loan A was 1.60%, the interest rate on the term loan B was 1.85% and the interest rate on the revolving A facility was 1.61%. There were no amounts outstanding under the revolving B facility at December 31, 2021. The unused credit facility fee was 0.30% for all revolving facilities at December 31, 2021.

The term loans are payable in quarterly installments due on the last business day of each March, June, September, and December with the final principal payment due on the respective maturity date. Borrowings on the revolving line of credit are repayable at the option of one, three or six months after borrowing, depending on the term of the borrowing on the facility. Borrowings on the foreign swing line of credit are due no later than twenty business days after such loan is made.

The obligations of the Borrowers under the Credit Agreement are secured by substantially all of the assets of FLEETCOR and its domestic subsidiaries, pursuant to a security agreement and includes a pledge of (i) 100% of the issued and outstanding equity interests owned by us of each Domestic Subsidiary and (2) 66% of the voting shares of the first-tier foreign subsidiaries, but excluding real property, personal property located outside of the U.S., accounts receivables and related assets subject to the Securitization Facility and certain investments required under money transmitter laws to be held free and clear of liens.

At December 31, 2021, we had $2.8 billion in borrowings outstanding on term loan A, net of discounts, and $1.9 billion in borrowings outstanding on term loan B, net of discounts, as of December 31, 2021. We have unamortized debt issuance costs of $3.3 million related to the revolving facilities as of December 31, 2021 recorded within other assets in the Consolidated Balance Sheet. We have unamortized debt discounts and debt issuance costs related to the term loans of $16.7 million and $8.5 million at December 31, 2021, respectively. The effective interest rate incurred on term loans was 1.79% during 2021 related to the discount on debt.

During 2021, we made principal payments of $508 million on the term loans, $2.0 billion on the revolving facilities, and $65.6 million on the swing line revolving facility.

As of December 31, 2021, we were in compliance with each of the covenants under the Credit Agreement.

On January 22, 2019, we entered into three swap contracts. The objective of these swap contracts is to reduce the variability of cash flows in the previously unhedged interest payments associated with $2.0 billion of variable rate debt, the sole source of which is due to changes in the LIBOR benchmark interest rate. These swap contracts qualify as hedging instruments and have been designated as cash flow hedges. For each of these swap contracts, we pay a fixed monthly rate and receive one month LIBOR. We reclassified approximately $50 million of losses from accumulated other comprehensive loss into interest expense during the year ended December 31, 2021 as a result of these hedging instruments. The maturity dates of the swap contracts are January 31, 2022 for $1 billion, January 31, 2023 for $500 million and December 19, 2023 for $500 million. In January 2022, $1.0 billion of our interest rate swaps matured.

We are a party to a $1.3 billion receivables purchase agreement among FleetCor Funding LLC, as seller, PNC Bank, National Association as administrator, and various purchaser agents, conduit purchasers and related committed purchasers parties thereto. We refer to this arrangement as the Securitization Facility. There have been multiple amendments to the Securitization

Facility. On September 15, 2021, the Company entered into the ninth amendment to the Securitization Facility. The amendment increased the Securitization Facility commitment from $1.0 billion to $1.3 billion. On March 29, 2021, the Company entered into the eighth amendment to the Securitization Facility. The amendment included a new three year maturity date, reduced the LIBOR floor to 0 bps, improved margins, and increased the swing line from $100 million to $250 million. The maturity date for the Company's Securitization Facility is March 29, 2024.

We were in compliance with all financial and non-financial covenant requirements related to our Securitization Facility as of December 31, 2021.

On January 25, 2022, the Board increased the aggregate size of the Program by $1.0 billion, to $6.1 billion. In January and February 2022, 1,510,027 shares were repurchased for an aggregate purchase price of $360.8 million, of which 1,066,015 shares with an aggregate purchase price of $256.5 million were repurchased pursuant to a 10b5-1 plan. As of March 1, 2022, the Company has up to $1.3 billion available under the Program for future repurchases of its common stock.

Any stock repurchases may be made at times and in such amounts as deemed appropriate. The timing and amount of stock repurchases, if any, will depend on a variety of factors including the stock price, market conditions, corporate and regulatory requirements, and any additional constraints related to material inside information the Company may possess. Any repurchases have been and are expected to be funded by a combination of available cash flow from the business, working capital and debt.

In applying the accounting policies that we use to prepare our consolidated financial statements, we necessarily make accounting estimates that affect our reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue and expenses. Some of these estimates require us to make assumptions about matters that are highly uncertain at the time we make the accounting estimates. We base these assumptions and the resulting estimates on historical information and other factors that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, and we evaluate these assumptions and estimates on an ongoing basis. In many instances, however, we reasonably could have used different accounting estimates and, in other instances, changes in our accounting estimates could occur from period to period, with the result in each case being a material change in the financial statement presentation of our financial condition or results of operations. We refer to estimates of this type as critical accounting estimates. Our significant accounting policies are summarized in the consolidated financial statements contained elsewhere in this report. The critical accounting estimates that we discuss below are those that we believe are most important to an understanding of our consolidated financial statements.

Our primary performance obligation for the majority of our payment solutions (Corporate Payments, Fuel, Lodging, and Gift, among others) is to stand-ready to provide authorization and processing services (payment services) for an unknown or unspecified quantity of transactions and the consideration received is contingent upon the customer’s use (e.g., number of transactions submitted and processed) of the related payment services. Accordingly, the total transaction price is variable. Payment services involve a series of distinct daily services that are substantially the same, with the same pattern of transfer to the customer. As a result, we allocate and recognize variable consideration in the period we have the contractual right to invoice the customer. For the tolls payment solution, our primary performance obligation is to stand-ready each month to provide access to the toll network and process toll transactions. Each period of access is determined to be distinct and substantially the same as the customer benefits over the period of access. In our cross-border payments business, the majority of revenue is from exchanges of currency at spot rates, which enables customers to make cross-currency payments.

Our Gift solutions deliver both stored value cards and e-cards (cards), and card-based services primarily in the form of gift cards to retailers. These activities each represent performance obligations that are separate and distinct. Revenue for stored valued cards is recognized (gross of the underlying cost of the related card, recorded in processing expenses within the Consolidated Statements of Income) at the point in time when control passes to our customer, which is generally upon shipment.

We account for revenue from late fees and finance charges, in jurisdictions where permitted under local regulations, primarily in the U.S. and Canada in accordance with ASC 310, "Receivables". Such fees are recognized net of a provision for estimated uncollectible amounts, at the time the fees and finance charges are assessed and services are provided. We cease billing and accruing for late fees and finance charges approximately 30 - 40 days after the customer’s balance becomes delinquent.

In addition, in our cross-border payments business, we write foreign currency forward and option contracts for our customers to facilitate future payments in foreign currencies. The duration of these derivative contracts at inception is generally less than one year. We aggregate our foreign exchange exposures arising from customer contracts, including forwards, options and spot exchanges of currency, as necessary, and economically hedge the net currency risks by entering into offsetting derivatives with established financial institution counterparties. The changes in fair value related to these instruments are recorded in revenues, net in the Consolidated Statements of Income.

We also evaluate indefinite-lived intangible assets (primarily trademarks and trade names) for impairment annually. We test for impairment if events and circumstances indicate that it is more likely than not that the fair value of an indefinite-lived intangible asset is below its carrying amount. Estimates critical to our evaluation of indefinite-lived intangible assets for impairment include the discount rate, royalty rates used in our evaluation of trade names, projected revenue growth and projected long-term growth rates in the determination of terminal values. An impairment loss is recorded if the carrying amount of an indefinite-lived intangible asset exceeds the estimated fair value on the measurement date.

enactment date. We have elected to treat the Global Intangible Low Taxed Income (GILTI) inclusion as a current period expense.

The ultimate realization of deferred tax assets is dependent upon the generation of future taxable income during the periods in which the associated temporary differences become deductible. We evaluate on a quarterly basis whether it is more likely than not that our deferred tax assets will be realized in the future and conclude whether a valuation allowance must be established.

The estimates we use to determine the fair value of long-lived assets, such as intangible assets, can be complex and require significant judgments. We use information available to us to make fair value determinations and engage independent valuation specialists, when necessary, to assist in the fair value determination of significant acquired long-lived assets. The estimated fair values of customer-related and contract-based intangible assets are generally determined using the income approach, which is based on projected cash flows discounted to their present value using discount rates that consider the timing and risk of the forecasted cash flows. The discount rates used represented a risk adjusted market participant weighted-average cost of capital, derived using customary market metrics. These measures of fair value also require considerable judgments about future events, including forecasted revenue growth rates, forecasted customer attrition rates, contract renewal estimates and technology changes. Acquired technologies are generally valued using the replacement cost method, which requires us to estimate the costs to construct an asset of equivalent utility at prices available at the time of the valuation analysis, with adjustments in value for physical deterioration and functional and economic obsolescence. Trademarks and trade names are generally valued using the "relief-from-royalty" approach. This method assumes that trademarks and trade names have value to the extent that their owner is relieved of the obligation to pay royalties for the benefits received from them. This method requires us to estimate the future revenues for the related brands, the appropriate royalty rate and the weighted-average cost of capital. This measure of fair value requires considerable judgment about the value a market participant would be willing to pay in order to achieve the benefits associated with the trade name.

Material Cash Requirements and Uses of Cash

We have included in the discussion above certain financial measures that were not prepared in accordance with GAAP. Any analysis of non-GAAP financial measures should be used only in conjunction with results presented in accordance with GAAP. Below, we define the non-GAAP financial measures, provide a reconciliation of each non-GAAP financial measure to the most directly comparable financial measure calculated in accordance with GAAP, and discuss the reasons that we believe this information is useful to management and may be useful to investors.

We have defined the non-GAAP measure adjusted net income as net income as reflected in our statement of income, adjusted to eliminate a) non-cash stock based compensation expense related to share based compensation awards, (b) amortization of deferred financing costs, discounts and intangible assets, amortization of the premium recognized on the purchase of receivables, and our proportionate share of amortization of intangible assets at our equity method investment, (c) integration and deal related costs, and (d) other non-recurring items, including unusual credit losses occurring largely due to COVID-19, the impact of discrete tax items, impairment charges, asset write-offs, restructuring costs, gains due to disposition of assets/businesses, loss on extinguishment of debt, and legal settlements.

We have defined the non-GAAP measure adjusted net income per diluted share as the calculation previously noted divided by the weighted average diluted shares outstanding as reflected in our statement of income.

We use adjusted net income to eliminate the effect of items that we do not consider indicative of our core operating performance. We believe it is useful to exclude non-cash share based compensation expense from adjusted net income because non-cash equity grants made at a certain price and point in time do not necessarily reflect how our business is performing at any particular time and share based compensation expense is not a key measure of our core operating performance. We also believe that amortization expense can vary substantially from company to company and from period to period depending upon their financing and accounting methods, the fair value and average expected life of their acquired intangible assets, their capital structures and the method by which their assets were acquired; therefore, we have excluded amortization expense from our adjusted net income. We also believe that integration and deal related costs and one-time non-recurring expenses, gains, losses, and impairment charges do not necessarily reflect how our investments and business are performing. We adjust net income for the tax effect of each of these non-tax items. Adjusted net income and adjusted net income per diluted share are supplemental measures of operating performance that do not represent and should not be considered as an alternative to net income, net income per diluted share or cash flow from operations, as determined by U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or U.S. GAAP. Adjusted net income and adjusted net income per diluted share are not intended to be a substitute for GAAP financial measures, and our calculation thereof may not be comparable to that reported by other companies.

Organic revenue growth is calculated as revenue growth in the current period adjusted for the impact of changes in the macroeconomic environment (to include fuel price, fuel price spreads and changes in foreign exchange rates) over revenue in the comparable prior period adjusted to include or remove the impact of acquisitions and/or divestitures and non-recurring items that have occurred subsequent to that period. We believe that organic revenue growth on a macro-neutral, one-time item, and consistent acquisition/divestiture/non-recurring item basis is useful to investors for understanding the performance of FLEETCOR.

Management uses adjusted net income, adjusted net income per diluted share and organic revenue growth:

Our international businesses expose us to foreign currency exchange rate changes that can impact translations of foreign-denominated assets and liabilities into U.S. dollars and future earnings and cash flows from transactions denominated in different currencies. Revenues from our international businesses were 37.0%, 38.6% and 39.8% of total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020, and 2019, respectively. We measure foreign currency exchange risk based on changes in foreign currency exchange rates using a sensitivity analysis. The sensitivity analysis measures the potential change in earnings based on a hypothetical 10% change in currency exchange rates. Exchange rates and currency positions as of December 31, 2021 were used to perform the sensitivity analysis. Such analysis indicated that a hypothetical 10% change in foreign currency exchange rates would have increased or decreased consolidated operating income during the year ended December 31, 2021 by approximately $48.0 million had the U.S. dollar exchange rate increased or decreased relative to the currencies to which we had exposure. When exchange rates and currency positions as of December 31, 2020 and 2019 were used to perform this sensitivity analysis, the analysis indicated that a hypothetical 10% change in currency exchange rates would have increased or decreased consolidated operating income for the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019 by approximately $42.4 million and $47.7 million, respectively. We have utilized International and Brazil segment operating income as a proxy for foreign earnings.

With our cross-border payment solutions, we have additional foreign exchange risk and associated foreign exchange risk management requirements due to the nature of our cross-border payments provider business. The majority of cross-border payments revenue is from exchanges of currency at spot rates, which enable customers to make cross-currency payments. In our cross-border payment solutions, we also write foreign currency forward and option contracts for customers to facilitate future payments. The duration of these derivative contracts at inception is generally less than one year. We aggregate foreign exchange exposures arising from customer contracts, including the derivative contracts described above, and hedge (economic hedge) the resulting net currency risks by entering into offsetting contracts with established financial institution counterparties.

We are exposed to the risk of changing interest rates on our cash investments and on the unhedged portion of our variable rate debt. As of December 31, 2021, we had $4.9 billion of variable rate debt outstanding under our Credit Agreement. See Note 11 of the accompanying consolidated financial statements for information about the Credit Agreement. We use derivative financial instruments to reduce our exposure related to changes in interest rates. In January 2019, we entered into three interest rate swap cash flow contracts with U.S. dollar notional amounts of $1 billion with a fixed rate of 2.56%, $500 million with a fixed rate of 2.56%, and $500 million with a fixed rate of 2.55% maturing on January 31, 2022, January 31, 2023 and December 19, 2023, respectively. For each of these swap contracts, we will receive one month LIBOR. While these agreements are intended to lessen the impact of rising interest rates on us, they also expose us to the risk that the other parties to the agreements will not perform, we could incur significant costs associated with the settlement of the agreements, the agreements will be unenforceable and the underlying transactions will fail to qualify as highly-effective cash flow hedges under U.S. GAAP. See Note 17 of the accompanying consolidated financial statements for information about the swap contracts.

If market interest rates had increased or decreased an average of 100 basis points and assuming we had an outstanding balance on our credit facility and term loans of $2.9 billion not fixed by interest rate swap contracts at December 31, 2021, our interest expense would have changed by approximately $29.0 million. Based on the amounts and mix of our fixed and floating rate debt (exclusive of our Securitization Facility) at December 31, 2020 and 2019, if market interest rates had increased or decreased an average of 100 basis points, our interest expense would have changed by approximately $16.0 million and $20.2 million, respectively. We determined these amounts by considering the impact of the hypothetical interest rates on our borrowing costs. These analyses do not consider the effects of changes in the level of overall economic activity that could exist in such an environment.

Our fleet customers use our products and services primarily in connection with the purchase of fuel. Accordingly, our revenue is affected by fuel prices, which are subject to significant volatility. A decline in retail fuel prices could cause a change in our revenue from several sources, including fees paid to us based on a percentage of each customer’s total purchase. Changes in the absolute price of fuel may also impact unpaid account balances and the late fees and charges based on these amounts. The impact of changes in fuel price is somewhat mitigated by our agreements with certain merchants, where the price paid to the merchant is equal to the lesser of the merchant’s cost plus a markup or a percentage of the transaction purchase price. We do not enter into any fuel price derivative instruments.

From our merchant and network relationships, we derive revenue from the difference between the price charged to a fleet customer for a transaction and the price paid to the merchant or network for the same transaction. For certain of our payment products, the price paid to a merchant or network is calculated as the merchant’s wholesale cost of fuel plus a markup. The

merchant’s wholesale cost of fuel is dependent on several factors including, among others, the factors described above affecting fuel prices. The fuel price that we charge to our customer is dependent on several factors including, among others, the fuel price paid to the fuel merchant, posted retail fuel prices and competitive fuel prices. We experience fuel price spread contraction when the merchant’s wholesale cost of fuel increases at a faster rate than the fuel price we charge to our customers, or the fuel price we charge to our customers decreases at a faster rate than the merchant’s wholesale cost of fuel. Accordingly, if fuel price spreads contract, we may generate less revenue, which could adversely affect our operating results. The impact of volatility in fuel spreads is somewhat mitigated by our agreements with certain merchants, where the price paid to the merchant is equal to cost plus a markup or a percentage of the transaction purchase price.

To the Shareholders and the Board of Directors of FLEETCOR Technologies, Inc. and Subsidiaries

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of FLEETCOR Technologies, Inc. and subsidiaries (the Company) as of December 31, 2021 and 2020, the related consolidated statements of income, comprehensive income, shareholders' equity and cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2021, and the related notes (collectively referred to as the “consolidated financial statements”). In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company at December 31, 2021 and 2020, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2021, in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.

We also have audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB), the Company's internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2021, based on criteria established in Internal Control-Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (2013 framework) and our report dated March 1, 2022 expressed an unqualified opinion thereon.

These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company's management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s financial statements based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

The critical audit matters communicated below are matters arising from the current period audit of the financial statements that were communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relate to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective or complex judgments. The communication of the critical audit matters does not alter in any way our opinion on the consolidated financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matter below, providing separate opinions on the critical audit matters or on the accounts or disclosures to which they relate.

/s/ Ernst & Young LLP

We have served as the Company's auditor since 2002.