Core vendors seek to eliminate barriers in bank-fintech partnerships

Performing due diligence on potential partners can be arduous for smaller banks. When Fiserv and other core vendors do the heavy lifting behind the scenes, “it opens up a whole new set of potential partnerships with banks,” said Dan Latimore, chief research officer at the research firm Celent. “It won’t necessarily be plug and play, but the time to onboard, reach an agreement and start working together will be vastly compressed if they do this right.”

The fact that Fiserv recently created a senior executive post to oversee fintech strategy is a testament to how important these efforts are becoming, Latimore said. In October, Fiserv announced that it had hired Sunil Sachdev as head of fintech.