Fiserv


Brookfield, USA


Cleartouch, DNA, Precision, Premier, Signature » Fiserv is one of the two largest core vendors in the US » Large portfolio of systems for financial institutions of all types and sizes (community banks, credit unions, commercial banks, regionals, etc.)


» DNA uses .NET framework and Oracle database » Available as an in-house deployment and on a hosted basis » Wide range of ancillary applications


Cleartouch, Premier, Precision, credit union systems Fiserv


One of the heavyweights in the US market, Fiserv has a daunting array of core banking systems. It claims all are complementary but one issue with any such supplier is the dilution of R&D – a regulatory change, for instance, requires the adaption of every core system. There are a number of common components, a mix of acquired and in-house developed, which sell as standalone offerings as well as linked to the myriad back office platforms. The supplier added yet another major core system when


it acquired Open Solutions and its DNA offering in early 2013. However, this then brought the ditching of one Fiserv offering, its emerging Acumen, which was sunsetted in favour of the more established acquired system. Acumen had looked promising but there had been a few problem sites and the users were now provided with DNA as an upgrade route. Most of the relatively small number of Acumen customers went this way (a few had evaluated DNA and Acumen in their original selections) but a few headed elsewhere. See the separate entries for coverage of the DNA and Signature systems. Fiserv is more or less a middle-tier vendor. For decades,


its strategy was to acquire smaller companies that had successfully served a specific niche with a solid, if not flashy, product. These well respected companies may have reached the limit in terms of expansion or been hit hard by bank consolidation.


Fiserv ended up with six core offerings for banks and


savings & loans by 2005. It had SourceOne, an outsourced solution based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for commercial banks with between $1 billion and $10 billion in assets, though it could be used by larger players. SourceOne’s core was on an IBM mainframe.


The in-house system for banks of the same size was the


Comprehensive Banking System (CBS), which ran on the IBM iSeries. This is the system that became branded as Signature. For commercial banks below $3 billion in assets, Fiserv’s ITI division sold Premier II. For correspondingly sized savings & loans, Fiserv Vision was the preferred platform. Premier II ran on another proprietary platform, the Unisys ClearPath server, but in 2004 it was ported as well to the iSeries. Fiserv added a


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browser-based front-end and had a division providing Premier II on an outsourced basis. Fiserv Vision, an outsourced data processing solution, had


approximately 300 savings banks in its client base by this time. As savings & loans expanded their activities, providing more business banking services, Vision had often been taken to support them.


In 2003, Fiserv had continued its acquisition strategy by


buying Precision Computer Systems (PCS). Precision merged its operations with Fiserv’s ITI unit. At the time, Scott Hodgins of Cornerstone Advisors, said he would not be surprised to see, ‘at least some gentle nudging of PCS customers to the ITI platform’. Precision’s retail banking system was also called Vision. Its users, running the system in-house, were small community banks with less than $500 million in deposits, so the acquisition helped Fiserv gain a good customer base in another niche.


In the mid-tier market, Jack Henry & Associates and FIS compete fiercely with Fiserv. Jack Henry’s Silverlake system and FIS’s Horizon compete directly with Premier II among banks with around $500 million to $3 billion in assets. There has been some rationalisation. While emphasising that customers would continue to be supported, in 2012 Fiserv pulled the plug on one of its old core systems, the mainframe- based SourceOne. Some users moved to other Fiserv systems, some went elsewhere. Baltimore-based 1st Mariner Bank, for instance, chose Precision in 2011. The bank’s SVP and head of e-commerce at the time, Kevin Lynch, described Precision and the other system on the bank’s shortlist, FIS’s IBS, as both ‘light years ahead of the current SourceOne platform’. Another mainframe-based system, TotalPlus, has also been effectively withdrawn. Fiserv’s new CardFree Cash technology allows a user to


access their account without having a card. The user has to call the bank and pass through some security checks to gain access to a 11 digit PIN. This PIN can be used at an ATM to gain access to the account. The technology has been successfully tested at a large Florida credit union and is expected to become more widely available in 2016.


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


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