DNA Fiserv
For the background on Fiserv as a whole and its wider product set, see the main Fiserv entry. This entry deals with the Open Solutions- derived Windows and Oracle-based core banking system, DNA, which is mainly aimed at credit unions and community banks.
DNA – origins
Fiserv’s Open Solutions-derived range of products spans solutions for banks, credit unions and thrifts. Described as an ‘enterprise-wide suite of software and services’, it is a relatively broad product set, based around the core banking system dubbed DNA, which was previously known as The Complete Banking Solution (TCBS) and The Complete Credit Union Solution (TCCUS). It uses a Microsoft .Net framework and an Oracle relational database. Most users are in North America although Open Solutions made some progress beyond here and Fiserv stated its intention of continuing to push DNA for the international market, following its acquisition of Open Solutions in mid-January 2013.
Open Solutions was set up in 1992 in Glastonbury, Connecticut. The aim was to build a data model that would be highly relational and extensible, as well as based on open standards. The model was meant to be applicable across industries and to be offered to third parties, including application providers, to underpin their own developments. In fact, this idea did not work but Open Solutions was contracted by a bank to do some work around the model. The fledgling company recruited some banking experts and started to move towards this sector. The first taker was a start-up Connecticut- based institution, Simsbury Bank. It is still a user, and signed a ten-year extension to its licence in early 2007. The system had two versions: TCBS for banks and TCCUS
for credit unions, using the same code base. Progress was fairly slow to start, with the company encountering all of the usual challenges of a newcomer in a fairly well populated and conservative market. Open Solutions embarked on what was to be a relatively brief early foray outside the US when it was approached by Unisys, which wanted to sell TCBS in Asia Pacific. A few recruits were gained in Vietnam but the foothold was not built on and the banks went their own way over time with the source code. Open Solutions approached the banks directly in 2006 with a view to bringing them back into the fold. Open Solutions gained a handful of other core applications over time through acquisitions. The first came in 2003 when the company acquired FiTech’s credit union software business and a large customer base in that segment. Later that year it went public and, in 2004, used funds raised to acquire rival, EastPoint Technologies, and credit union software provider, re:Member Data Services. Towards the end of 2004, Open
Solutions acquired Canadian company Datawest which, among other things, provided core data processing and payments technology, mainly to Canadian credit unions. This gave Open Solutions a toe-hold in the Canadian market. Datawest’s Visionwest platform was later killed off, with the last client completing conversion to DNA by mid-2011. Further acquisitions followed in the form of a leveraged buyout of Utah-based SOSystems and its client base of 120 US credit unions, and the US business unit of CGI. In Canada, a breakthrough came in December 2005 when Calgary- based Celero Solutions opted for TCCUS to replace a legacy system for its service bureau. Celero was a joint venture of three regional credit union associations and Concentra Financial, a credit union solutions provider. It took the system for further customisation and distribution across Canada’s Prairie Provinces. The system was marketed under the name of Eroworks, and by late 2011 it had 105 takers. Canada was described as ‘a strategic market’ by Open Solutions. It claimed to have made ‘an investment of eight figures worth’ and 75,000 hours on localising the system. By H2 2011, it claimed the largest share of the Canadian core banking software market, with around 150 mid-size and smaller entities using its DNA platform, supplied via a tie-up with Celero or directly by Open Solutions, which equated to nearly 40 per cent of the market. The vendor targeted the country’s mid-tier sector, describing it as ‘pretty much everyone outside the top six largest banks’. There were 14 tenders in the pipeline for Open Solutions in Canada by mid- 2011, and it expected to win three by the end of that year. In 2005, Open Solutions acquired Bisys Information
Services Group (BISG) from Bisys Group, for about $470 million. Open Solutions had a long standing strategic partnership with Bisys, under which, since 1997, BISG resold TCBS as TotalCS. In 2003, this relationship was extended so that BISG became the only national outsource provider for TCBS. BISG was made up of three divisions that covered, among other things, outsourced information processing for around 220 large and community banks, plus a mainframe-based system, TotalPlus. Open Solutions saw the deal as helping to round out its range of offerings. In 2007, Bisys Group was acquired by Citi. By mid-2006, from a non-US perspective, Open Solutions was able to point to a number of wins in Canada and City of Bridgetown Credit Union in Barbados. It was also eyeing other markets such as China and India.
US Financial Services Technology Market Report |
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