Evolution
Co-founder of the acquired Sanchez, Frank Sanchez, said in 2005 that he did not foresee ‘significant green-field opportunities’ for Systematics but FIS would continue to add functionality and would do ‘obsolescence proofing’. He added that existing users might look to roll out on a broader scale and cited (but did not name) a ‘major global bank’ that had recently decided to go this way with Systematics. ‘We can definitely extend the value and life of these products.’ The predicted lack of sales for Systematics (or for any
FIS core banking system, for that matter) duly came to pass, against the backdrop of economic and financial crisis. 2009 was a poor year for sales of FIS’s systems. There were four new-name takers of Profile (all in the US), one for Systematics, and none for another FIS offering, Corebank. The following year there were three deals for Profile (one in the US, one in Thailand and a lending win in India) but no new names for Corebank or Systematics. 2011 remained much the same, with four Profile wins but no new signings again for both Corebank and Systematics.
Takers
A notable customer from the perspective of XES/Xpress and Systematics has been New England-based Webster Bank in the US. Systematics was selected by the bank as part of a large technology revamp, in 2004. All three FIS solutions here were then linked, via XES, to FIS’s Touchpoint system at the front-end. In 2003 Webster Bank decided to move from its traditional savings bank focus to being a broader commercial bank. The first decision was to select a specific commercial lending system, with FIS’s ACBS chosen. The system needed to be integrated with the bank’s existing in-house systems but the overall architecture was creaking. ‘We decided that the infrastructure wouldn’t really support the bank as it became a commercial bank, nor would it handle the kind of growth that the bank was envisaging,’ said CIO, John Kershner. So the decision was made to ‘rip and replace all core banking systems’.
This sounded like a daunting task but, from Board approval in January 2004, the new platforms were up and running by July of the following year. At that point, Webster converted a recently acquired, Rhode Island-based bank, FirstFed America Bancorp (Webster’s first move beyond the borders of Connecticut); the full conversion of its original core business happened in October.
The bank started with a list of nine or ten vendors and
FIS still appears to put a fair amount of investment into Systematics as it is such a heavily used solution in the US (Bank of America, Bank of the West, Citizens Bank and other large regional players). FIS has managed to sell other components and services to some of these users (Bank of America took Xpress and Touchpoint, for instance, Citizens also has these two components, and Bank of the West rolled out Touchpoint during 2009).
The supplier continues to bid with Systematics from time to time, as it did at Banco de la Nacion in Peru, which was favouring a mainframe-based platform (the bank opted in late 2013 for the system offered by Nessa, a subsidiary of the Spanish rural banks). In fact, 2013 saw something of a revival in terms of new-name deals. The vendor gained two new Systematics takers, both in the US. One was Florida- based Motor Funding Services LLC, which took the system for auto lease servicing and collections. The deal was signed in September 2013.
In December 2016, FIS launched a FinTech network called the FIS HiPo Network which comprises of six start- ups. The network is a part of the company’s strategy to bring new innovations to the financial services industry in an efficient and practical way.
moved quickly to a shortlist of Fidelity and Fiserv. It looked at the entire product suite of the two domestic heavyweights as well as at their product plans. The bank was keen on an SOA approach so was interested in the vision of the two companies from this perspective. Webster Bank was convinced by the FIS roadmap and decided to go with its solutions, although it did select Fiserv’s Informent data warehouse. In parallel with Xpress, the bank chose to implement BEA’s Weblogic as its broad integration layer – while the bank decided to standardise on a number of FIS systems, it was at different stages of choosing or implementing a fair number of others. The bank felt it needed the processing capabilities of Systematics to provide the scale for doubling or tripling the size of its business. ‘But traditionally, mainframe integration has been very cumbersome and costly,’ said Kershner. It wanted an integration layer that could facilitate easy integration between the mainframe and its other applications. From the FIS suite Webster Bank not only has ACBS and Systematics, running out of the supplier’s San Diego and Little Rock data centers respectively, but also the supplier’s MSP mortgage processing system, running in Jacksonville. At the front-end, linked to these via Xpress, is Touchpoint, which is used by tellers, relationship managers and contact center staff. Kershner described it as ‘the window’ into the FIS ‘world’. The bank also took FIS’s account analysis software and commercial internet banking solution. The latter was already
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