Horizon FIS


FIS core system overview


FIS has a clutch of core systems comprising Horizon, Miser, the Kirchman/Metavante-derived Bankway, Metavante-derived IBS, BancPac, Profile, and Systematics. FIS also has a range of satellite applications along with its largest, main business line of payment processing. As with key rival, Fiserv, FIS has kept most of its core


systems in play, which inevitably means a duplication of effort and investment. A few have been dropped as commercial offerings but some of these still have sizeable user bases. Indeed, FIS has been a mainstay of the US bank processing sector. In 2004, banking technology research firm, Tower Group, concluded that ‘the Fidelity Integrated Monetary Processing and Control System (Impacs) is now the most widely installed deposit system at top US banks and thrifts, surpassing both competing vendor products and the use of proprietary systems’. Tower Group’s research found that ‘the Fidelity Impacs and Fidelity Savings/Time Deposit System solutions are installed at 26 of the top 100 US banks, up from nine in 1995’. Thus, these systems processed 31 per cent of all deposit accounts held by the top 100 US banks and savings & loans, around 20 per cent of the US market.


FIS had gained the Horizon system when it bought US


supplier, Horizon, in 1991. The current solution runs on the IBM iSeries and was launched in 1992. It replaced an initial DOS-based system. Horizon is aimed at small to mid-tier banks, plus savings & loans institutions. Typically, it plays in the $500 million to $3 billion asset space, against the likes of Jack Henry & Associates’ Silverlake and Fiserv’s Premier. Community banks are prime targets. Horizon continues to sell in reasonable numbers, reflected in 16 new-name deals in


2013 (the same number as had been recorded in 2009). FIS grew markedly in financial services in 2003 with the $1.05 billion acquisition of Alltel. For core banking, this brought the mainframe-based Systematics. Development of this retail banking solution had begun within a company of the same name in the US in 1967 and it had been launched as the Integrated Retail Financial Software (IRFS) on the mainframe in the 1970s. In 1990, Systematics had become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alltel Corporation. Alltel itself was founded in the early 1980s through the merger of two US telephone companies. Following the Systematics acquisition, it diversified and part of it became the Information Services division. This, in turn, was acquired by Fidelity/FIS. There was a particular spending spree for Fidelity Information Services in 2004, when it acquired Sanchez, Aurum Technology, and InterCept. In fact, it was a year of M&A as, elsewhere, Metavante bought Kirchman and Open Solutions picked up EastPoint Technologies. The US core banking systems market was booming, what could possibly go wrong? Fidelity’s acquisition of Sanchez in January yielded the


Profile retail banking system. This was viewed as the successor to Impacs by some analyst, although at this time, despite moves to port Profile to the mainframe, it was largely in low and mid-tier banks, at home and abroad. The other two deals in 2004 were focused on the lower end


of the market. With Aurum, Fidelity obtained Miser, a popular and long-time incumbent system for middle tier savings & loans on the Unisys ClearPath platform; Mercury, a Windows 2000-based core system for medium-sized and small credit unions; the Aurum Banking System and BMIS service bureau, for small community banks; and the Premier service bureau, an


US Financial Services Technology Market Report | www.ibsintelligence.com 57


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