Meet Daniel, The Banker Who Had It All Figured Out..until he didn’t.

Daniel is a sharp, capable community banker. He knows his market, he manages his risk well, and he prides himself on making financially sound decisions for his institution.  So, when the dreaded core IT vendor contract renewal from FIS landed on his desk, he saw it as just another business challenge to conquer.

Let me tell you about one of the worst trading days of my life.

Breaking Free: It’s Time to Rewrite the Rules of Core IT & Fintech Contracts

For years, community banks have felt trapped in a David vs. Goliath struggle with their Core IT providers. Fiserv, FIS, Jack Henry – these Big Three giants have held the power, locking banks into one-sided contracts that often feel unfair and exploitative. But the tide started to turn back in 2016 when the The Golden Contract Coalition (GCC) was launched by our CEO, Aaron Silva in partnership with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman (Pillsbury).  Aaron’s company Paladin fs is the only advisory firm to have created an independent, 3rd party coalition designed to battle the Big Three head on.  

The American Bankers Association tried many years ago to tame the Big Three with the formation of their Core Platforms Committee but has largely failed in this endeavor, petering out remaining momentum back in 2022.  Solving the issue of fair contracts will only work if the economic buyers (banks and credit unions) come together in a free market coalition with the confidence and expertise of industry leaders such as Paladin and Pillsbury.  Unfortunately, the ABA does not have experts familiar with Core, IT and Fintech contracts on staff and this is not in their mission to employ them.

What do Paladin Hired Guns Do for Our Annual Business Meeting?

The end of the year might typically be a time for relaxing, holiday cheer, and family fun, but this year, the Paladin team decided to celebrate our annual meeting a little differently. We spent our annual meeting building up our team and setting the stage for the next big strides forward. All of our hired guns flew into Austin and we spent our event in the beautiful Texas Hill Country. We invited a few special guests that gave a master class on negotiation; outlined new marketing activities for 2025; Entrepreneurial Operating System implementation (we’re an EOS company) , and then our legal team from Pillsbury laid out plans for updating the Golden Contract template and using Artificial Intelligence!

The Art of Successful Core IT Negotiations: Best Practices from Banking's Top Contract Experts

When it comes to core IT contract negotiations, community banks face a critical challenge: how to secure favorable terms while maintaining vital vendor relationships. With technology contracts representing one of a bank's largest non-interest expenses, the stakes couldn't be higher.

To demystify the art of successful negotiations, we've gathered insights from our panel of veteran negotiators. 

The Writing's on the Wall - In Disappearing Ink

Attention, community bankers! The tectonic plates of banking technology are shifting, and if you're not paying attention, you might just find yourself doing an impromptu dance on the San Andreas Fault of financial services. The latest tremor? Our friends at the Big Three - Fiserv, FIS, and Jack Henry - are starting to play a high-stakes game of Jenga with their services, and guess who's left holding their breath as the tower teeters? That's right, it's you, the community banks and credit unions.

Fiserv has decided to kick off this party by beginning to ask their clients to ride into the sunset without Retail Online Banking (ROB) and Business Online Banking (BOB) services after December 2026. If you think that's a problem for future-you, think again. In the glacial world of core banking systems, 2026 is practically next Tuesday.

We've worked with banks of all sizes ranging from $150M to $30B over the last 15 years and with all legacy core IT suppliers and all of their services.  Unremarkably, none of the "big three" have excellent reputations when it comes to service and support and most bankers agree that dumping one core for another to gain greater functionality, innovation or deeper love and attention is a losing proposition.  None of them do anything particularly great...but when you have unchallenged control of the market as they do - "adequate" service levels are good enough by their standard because they are no longer competing for customers. 

Consumers set high standards for businesses, especially financial institutions. Money is a sensitive topic with little, if any, margin for error — people expect transfers, transactions, account management, or whatever other services to be timely and precise. 

In turn, you have to hold your core IT provider and fintech suppliers to an equally high standard. Otherwise, your business could be at risk. 

To do so, your vendor contracts’ Service Level Agreements (SLAs) must be tight, relevant, and enforceable. But there’s a common problem plaguing the financial services industry: most contracts don’t have real SLAs. Instead, they have Service Level Objectives (SLOs).

How much am I overpaying for core, IT, and fintech services? 

It’s the most frequent question we’ve received since we started helping community banks and credit unions fight back against unfair vendor agreements over fourteen years ago. 

Naturally, it’s a fair question to ask, but it’s impossible to provide a simple answer to such a complex financial question. Core banking agreements and fintech vendor contracts have so many nuances that it’s impossible to pinpoint the “right” price to pay for these services without hiring an expert armed with market intelligence to analyze your contract — there are just too many factors at play.

Many banks and credit unions face a growing dilemma: their core banking systems are outdated, complex, and inefficient. 

When your core banking system predates the commercialization of the internet (circa 1992) — that’s a problem, don’t you think?