Financial Services
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Financial Services & Banking
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Core Banking Systems
Banking IT Modernization
Regulated environments where trust, compliance, and operational resilience are non-negotiable.
Example organizations in this space:
Accenture
TCS
Infosys
IBM
This interactive experience is the shipped product itself — the same application code customers run in production, mounted read-only in your browser over a real sample journey. Not a video, not a mockup: because the demo and the product are one codebase, it can never drift from the real thing.
Inside this journey
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Pre-Sales
Qualify the mandate, identify stakeholders, and align on outcomes before a full solution design.
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Fit & Mandate Validation
Confirm the board mandate, timeline constraints, budget guardrails, decision sponsors, and regulatory exam windows before investing in full discovery.
Qualification Questions
Board mandate & success criteria
- To make the best use of your time, can you briefly confirm the board mandate driving this initiative and the top two measurable outcomes the board will use to judge progress?
Timeline constraints & regulatory exam windows
- What is your target window to complete the first deployable phase?
- Please list any regulatory exam windows or blackout periods in the next 18 months that we must avoid or align with (quarter and year)
Budget guardrails
- Is there an allocated budget or guardrail for initial discovery and for the first delivery phase? Select the bracket that best fits.
- Will progression to later phases require measurable cost-takeout or other gated milestones to release funding?
Decision sponsors, governance & next step
- Who are the decision sponsors and final approvers for starting full discovery and signing contracts? Please list role titles and identify the final approver.
- To confirm alignment, would you like us to schedule a 30-minute alignment call to review constraints before we propose a full discovery plan?
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Executive Discovery
Map stakeholders, current-state mainframe and middleware constraints, data dependencies, and measurable success signals for phased modernization.
Discovery Questions
Starting point: mandate, timeline, and who signs off
- How soon does the board expect digital account opening to be live?
- What is your current program timeline for modernization efforts expressed in months?
- Which executive sponsors will need to sign off on each phase and what decision authority do they each hold?
- Who is the primary contact for vendor due diligence, reference calls, and procurement coordination?
- Describe one recent success where your IT team delivered a major change on time and on budget, and what enabled that result.
- How confident are you that the board's eighteen month public deadline is fixed?
Where the current platform falls short for new products
- Tell me about the last time a mainframe or middleware constraint delayed a customer-facing product launch, what happened, and who owned the decision to delay.
- What specific batch jobs, middleware links, or data feeds cause the biggest bottlenecks during month-end or quarter-end processing?
- Which line-of-business teams experience the highest volume of manual workarounds tied to legacy interfaces?
- Who becomes aware first when a reconciliation or balance error surfaces, and on average how long before executive leadership is informed?
- If that mismatch occurred during a migration cutover, would you pause the release or proceed with compensating controls, and what specific trigger would determine that choice?
Costs that will make or break phase two
- Identify the single cost metric your CFO would accept as proof of phase one success, for example absolute dollar reduction, percent run-rate reduction, or FTE hours saved.
- Describe your current method for measuring run-rate mainframe maintenance costs each quarter, including which GL codes or cost centers you use.
- Name the finance owner who signs off on realized cost savings for scope-related billing milestones and include their role title.
- Estimate the minimum percentage of IT run-rate reduction that must be demonstrable after phase one for the project to continue.
- If phase one fails to deliver that reduction, what contractual or budget consequence would prevent you from continuing with subsequent phases?
Regulatory gates, exam windows, and approval risk
- Identify which upcoming regulatory exam window would force you to pause or reshape a migration phase and explain why.
- When is your next OCC or FDIC technology-focused exam, and who will be the lead regulator contact for examiner communications?
- Name a team member who has led an examiner briefing on a migration plan in the past three years and share their role.
- Can you provide evidence of a staged rollback demonstration within your exam window if examiners request it?
- List any outstanding regulatory items or open findings that must be closed before a contract can be signed, and note estimated closure timelines.
The other paths on the table
- List the external options you are actively evaluating right now, including incumbents, global firms, and specialist integrators.
- Has anyone internally proposed a self-implementation build, and if so who is championing it and what resource trade-offs have they identified?
- Explain the specific conditions under which you would stay on the current core and not pursue migration, including cost, risk, or time triggers.
- Would choosing the incumbent hinge more on price, timing, reference clients, regulatory comfort, or internal politics?
Can we actually deliver — practical readiness and constraints
- Provide the integration points that must be available to proceed and the owning teams for each, for example core API, payments switch, or ledger extract.
- Estimate the number of dedicated internal FTEs you can commit to the migration team during parallel-run windows.
- Does your production environment allow secure vendor remote access for troubleshooting, and if not what is the primary blocker?
- Is there an approved funding or governance path to fix major data quality issues without pausing delivery, and who authorizes it?
- Provide the backup, archival, or tape systems that contain the canonical ledger you expect us to migrate and the access approach for each.
If the pilot proves the model, how quickly can we act?
- Assuming a three-month pilot proves the cost model, who on your leadership team can sign the go or no-go within one week?
- When would you expect to start a pilot relative to your next regulatory exam?
- Detail the deliverables the seller must produce in the pilot report for you to approve phase two, including key data points and acceptance tests.
- Is there a contractual clause or legal approval that would prevent you from signing within 30 days of pilot success? If yes, please describe.
- Please provide the primary contact for reference checks and a second contact for operational validation, with role and best contact method.
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Solution Experience
Translate the buyer's context into a shared view of the phased target architecture, cutover sequencing, rollback options, and expected cost-takeout.
Solution Experience
- Solution Experience Session: Phased Target Architecture
- Confirm the current state and its cost to your team
- You confirm the phased architecture aligns to your regulatory exam calendar and reduces the time you would otherwise run dual platforms.
- Deliver a detailed phased target architecture diagram with component cutover sequencing, explicit rollback triggers, and phase-level cost-takeout estimates within 7 business days.
- You confirm the presented cutover sequence and explicit rollback triggers remove the risk of a stalled midstream program.
- Map the phased target architecture to your services
- Provide your regulatory exam calendar and the list of decision sponsors with availability for a regulatory walkthrough within 5 business days.
- Provide an inventory of current core transactions, middleware integrations, and one-line notes on stability or known data quality issues.
- You agree that the phase-level cost-takeout estimates are a reasonable basis for a phased business case.
- Walk a representative cutover sequence and rollback options
- Show expected cost-takeout per phase and how it sustains the business case
- You agree on the specific artifacts and timeline required for regulatory acceptance and the next decision checkpoint.
- Schedule a regulatory architecture walkthrough with the proposed project director and lead architect within two weeks.
- Forced validation, confirm this matches your needs
- Agree next validation artifacts and timeline
- Solution Experience Session: Phased Target Architecture
- Solution Experience Deck
- Solution Brief — Phased Target Architecture & Cutover Plan
- meeting
- slides
- document
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Solution Scope
Define deliverables, phase boundaries, responsibilities, measurable acceptance criteria, and explicit out-of-scope items to protect the business case.
Scope Configuration
- Migrate Core Account and Ledger Records
- Migrate Transaction History to Cloud Data Lake
- Implement API Layer and Banking APIs
- Integrate Digital Account Opening Frontend
- Convert Batch Jobs and Scheduled Processes
- Execute Parallel Production Runs and Cutover
- Deploy Rollback and Failback Automation
- Migrate Middleware Integrations and Interface Endpoints
- Automate Core Operational Workflows
- Remediate Data Quality and Matching Exceptions
- Deliver Operator Knowledge Transfer and Training
- Produce Regulatory Migration Package for Examiners
Scope Questions
Migrate Core Account and Ledger Records
- How many active account records (accounts with activity in the last 24 months) must be migrated from your current platform?
- List the core ledger tables and file names to migrate (for example: customer, account, balance, general_ledger_entries) and indicate primary key fields.
- Describe the posting and interest calculation jobs that must be preserved exactly (include job names or batch IDs such as INTEREST_CALC, EOD_POST).
- Identify any account classes to archive or exclude at migration (for example: dormant accounts older than 7 years, legacy product codes) and supply table identifiers.
- Specify the data accuracy threshold for balances and ledger entries required at cutover (for example: 99.99% parity by dollar and 99.9% by transaction count).
- What measurable acceptance criteria will confirm completion of the core account and ledger migration (for example: account count parity within 0.1%, GL reconcile zero-difference, and no unapplied items >100 accounts)?
Migrate Transaction History to Cloud Data Lake
- How many months or years of transaction history must be ingested into the cloud data lake (for example: 6 months, 7 years)?
- Name the transaction file formats you currently produce for ingestion (for example: fixed-width COBOL files, NACHA ACH files, CSV exports, SWIFT messages).
- Outline required schema mappings for transaction records including specific fields to preserve (for example: account_id, posting_date, value_date, amount, transaction_type, reference).
- Identify regulatory or retention hold windows that apply to the migrated history (for example: 7 years for transactional audit logs).
- Do you require on-the-fly deduplication or entity resolution during ingest into the data lake (for example: dedupe by transaction reference and timestamp)?
- Estimate required bulk ingest performance (for example: records per second or time to backfill 12 months) to meet your backfill window.
Implement API Layer and Banking APIs
- Provide the list of account and payment APIs required at launch (for example: account balance read, transaction history lookup, ACH submit, wire initiation).
- How will you authenticate API consumers at cutover (for example: OAuth2 with client certificates, mutual TLS, API keys tied to internal service accounts)?
- Specify the service-level objective for API response time under peak load for balance reads (for example: <200ms 95th percentile).
- Indicate the integration endpoints that must be proxied or retired at cutover (for example: teller host API, mobile banking gateway, ATM switch) and list protocols.
- Do you require API contract verification and runtime schema enforcement (for example: OpenAPI validation, consumer-driven contract tests)?
- Provide the banking message formats to support and any custom field mappings (for example: ISO 20022 elements, NACHA field mappings).
Integrate Digital Account Opening Frontend
- How many account types and onboarding flows must the digital opener support at launch (for example: personal checking, business checking, savings)?
- List required identity verification checks to integrate into the onboarding flow (for example: KYC name-date-of-birth match, OFAC screening, government ID OCR).
- Describe the data handoff to the core for new accounts including field set, authorization tokens, and initial deposit file format.
- Will you require synchronous account provisioning at cutover or is deferred batch provisioning acceptable for any product types?
- Specify front-end acceptance criteria for application-to-core latency and successful account opening rate under peak onboarding volumes.
- Indicate any customer disclosures, consent records, or regulatory forms that must be captured and migrated with the new account (for example: consent PDFs, adverse action letters).
Convert Batch Jobs and Scheduled Processes
- List critical nightly and end-of-day batch jobs by name or job id that must be converted (for example: EOD_POST, INTEREST_CALC, FEES_BATCH).
- How do you expect job scheduling to be validated in the new environment (for example: runbook dry-runs, job tracer logs, timestamp parity checks)?
- Indicate dependencies between batch jobs and external interfaces (for example: ACH file creation before settlement, GL post before regulatory reporting).
- Do you require re-engineering of specific COBOL programs into services as part of this scope and if so list job ids?
- Specify allowable SLA windows for late-cut processing from business (for example: up to 2-hour tolerance after scheduled cut).
- Detail expected automatic recovery behavior for converted jobs (for example: restart from checkpoint, idempotent replay) and provide examples of historical failure modes.
Execute Parallel Production Runs and Cutover
- When must the parallel production run window be scheduled to align with your regulatory exam calendar and business blackout dates?
- Enumerate the transaction classes to exercise during parallel runs for parity validation (for example: ACH batches, wire transfers, teller transactions, ATM reversals).
- Indicate expected transaction parity thresholds during parallel operation (for example: >=99.9% transaction match by count and >=99.99% by dollar).
- What measurable acceptance criteria will confirm a successful parallel run and greenlight cutover (for example: parity thresholds, zero-delta reconciliation, and regulator acknowledgement)?
- Who on your operations team will own cutover-day command-and-control and who is the named escalation contact for transaction anomalies?
- Specify rollback triggers and stop conditions for the parallel run (for example: sustained parity divergence >0.5% for 30 minutes).
Deploy Rollback and Failback Automation
- Describe the required rollback granularity (for example: per-transaction reverse, account-level failback, or full-environment rollback) and which ledgers must be protected.
- How will automated rollback be validated in a test window (for example: end-to-end dry-run with test accounts and reconciliation evidence)?
- Identify the synchronization checkpoints to track for safe failback (for example: last applied sequence number, file offset, checkpoint timestamps).
- Do you require automated replay tools to reapply missing transactions to the restored platform after failback?
- List external processors and partners that must be coordinated during rollback (for example: ACH processor, card network, loan servicer) and their SLA constraints.
- Are there regulator reporting obligations triggered by a rollback event that must be automated (for example: incident notification to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) or equivalent)?
Migrate Middleware Integrations and Interface Endpoints
- List middleware components and interface endpoints to migrate (for example: MQ brokers, enterprise service bus routes, SFTP endpoints, API gateway routes) and include protocol and port.
- Indicate which interfaces require guaranteed delivery semantics (for example: persistent MQ queues) versus best-effort (for example: REST webhook).
- How many external counterparties and third-party interfaces must be re-pointed at cutover (for example: ATM switch, mobile gateway, loan servicing vendor)?
- Do you require partner certification tests or simulated partner feeds included in scope for each external interface?
- Specify message transformations or canonical model mappings required (for example: date format changes, amount sign conventions, field renames) and provide mapping examples.
- Who is the technical owner for each interface and can you provide test endpoint contact and authentication credentials for validation?
Automate Core Operational Workflows
- Which operational workflows should be automated as part of scope (for example: account maintenance, fee scheduling, returned items processing)?
- Describe the business rules that drive fee posting and exception handling that must be encoded (for example: NSF fee thresholds, tiered fee rules, interest posting rules).
- Do you require role-based approvals and audit trails for operational changes and if so which roles require approvals (for example: ops manager, compliance officer)?
- How will you validate workflow parity prior to cutover (for example: reconciliation reports, sandbox runs with production-like data sets)?
- Specify a target automation coverage goal as a percentage of manual steps removed for the sampled workflows.
- Identify any long-tenured operator knowledge artifacts (for example: tribal runbooks, COBOL job notes, batch scripts) that must be captured during handover.
Remediate Data Quality and Matching Exceptions
- How many unmatched or exception records (estimate) appear in your current reconciliation reports that will require remediation?
- Indicate which reconciliation processes generate the majority of exceptions (for example: GL vs subledger, account balance drift, uncleared items) and provide sample report names.
- Describe the matching rules and fuzzy-match tolerances you permit (for example: allowable date skew of 1 day, amount tolerance $0.01) for automated remediation.
- Do you want automated exception resolution (for example: machine-assisted matching with operator approval) or manual operator queues?
- Specify the acceptance threshold for remediated data quality before cutover (for example: 99.95% match on active accounts by dollar).
- Who will sign off on unresolved exceptions at cutover and what is the escalation path for items left open after migration?
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Regulatory & Migration Validation
Validate the phased delivery plan, migration rollback approach, and regulatory controls through reference reviews, architecture interviews, and scripted acceptance scenarios.
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Mutual Commit
Finalize commercial and legal terms, regulatory acceptance conditions, governance, and phased billing tied to measurable cost takeout.
Agreement Modules
- Master Services Agreement (MSA)
- Statement of Work (SOW)
- Phased Billing & Cost‑Takeout Milestones
- Regulatory Acceptance Addendum (Financial Services)
- Data Processing and Security Addendum (DPA / SOC 2 / Data Residency)
- Governance and Change Control Charter
- Acceptance & Cutover Sign‑Off Matrix
- Change Order Agreement
- Termination and Transition Services Agreement
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Deployment
Operationalize rollout with readiness checks, execution, and outcome validation.
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Pre-Deployment Readiness
Capture concrete readiness facts — owners, environments, data access, exam-window alignment, and planned parallel-run dates — before build begins.
Pre-Deployment Questions
Environment and site access
- List each production and pre‑production environment the deployment will touch and the named environment owner (format: Environment name — owner). This lets us schedule access and segregate work.
- Production environment access readiness — select the current state so we can schedule the build and cutover windows.
- Which integration endpoint categories will the deployment call? (select all that apply)
- Are test/staging endpoints available for the integration categories above (so we can run integration and rollback rehearsals)?
Data and configuration
- Which data domains will be migrated or initialized in phase 1? (select all that apply)
- Has a single source‑of‑truth owner been assigned for each migrating data domain? (this owner will be our validation contact)
- If owners are assigned, list each data domain and the owner contact (Environment, domain — owner name & role).
- Is the initial field‑mapping approach for phase 1 finalized (so we can lock migration scripts and test cases)?
People and ownership
- Who is the single point of contact (SPOC) for cutover approvals and escalation during phase 1? (name, role, preferred contact method)
- Which critical workstreams already have a named owner and a named backup? (select workstreams that have both owner + backup assigned)
- Has the buyer confirmed regulator alignment for the planned migration window (regulator POC named and exam window accounted for)?
- If regulator POC is named or alignment is confirmed, provide the regulator POC name and the agreed exam‑window dates (so we can avoid blocked windows).
Timing and constraints
- Planned parallel‑run dates for phase 1 (start and end). If undecided, enter TBD. We use these to schedule parallel operations and acceptance gates.
- Are there blackout dates or business‑critical windows in the next 6 months that would prevent cutover or parallel runs (e.g., month‑end, major marketing launches)?
- Which third‑party vendors have change windows or SLA constraints that could block deployment? (select all that apply)
- Is representative test data available in pre‑production for phase 1 validation (so we can run full dress rehearsals)?
- Has a production rollback decision authority and named rollback owner been assigned for phase 1 (this person makes the call and executes the rollback runbook)?
- Are required compliance and audit artifacts available for parallel‑run validation (retention policies, audit trails, consent records)?
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Configuration & Cutover Plan
Lock exact configuration values, integration endpoints, data migration scripts, parallel-run windows, and rollback parameters the deployment team will execute.
Configuration Details
Environments & Integration Endpoints
- Production environment instance name (enter the exact string the deployment will reference; example: 'prod-core-01')
- Production API gateway URL (format: https://<host>/<path> — enter the exact URL the deployment will call)
- Primary integration endpoint type for the cutover (choose one)
Authentication & Integration Identifiers
- Integration endpoint identifier (single value): enter the exact URL, queue/topic name, or SFTP path the deployment will connect to (format examples: https://api.example.com/v1, topic.customer-events, sftp:/incoming/path). Do not paste credentials.
- Authentication method for the integration (Default: Mutual TLS (mTLS))
- Credential owner (role or person responsible for the non-secret identifier and for exchanging the secret via your secure channel at kickoff; enter exact role or name)
Data Migration & Validation
- Primary migration script repository path or object-storage URI (enter the exact path the build will execute; examples: git@repo:bank/migrations.git::scripts/migrate.sql or s3://bucket/path/migration.zip)
- Acceptable data-validation deviation between source and migrated record counts — percent (numeric). Default is 0.1
- Estimated data size to migrate (numeric, in GB). Enter a whole or decimal number (enter 0 if unknown)
Cutover, Parallel-Run & Rollback
- Parallel-run window planned start (local date and time — format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM — include timezone region in parentheses, e.g., 2026-09-01 22:00 (America/New_York))
- Parallel-run duration in hours (numeric). Default is 168 (7 days) — confirm or specify another value
- Rollback trigger policy (choose one)
- Named rollback owner (exact role or person who provides final sign-off to execute rollback; enter as 'Role: Full Name' or 'Team Name')
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Deployment
Execute phased cutovers with Gantt-managed tasks, parallel operations, rollback readiness, and clear escalation paths.
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Go-Live Acceptance
Formal per-phase acceptance checklist confirming runbook execution, data integrity, regulator notifications, and named owner sign-offs before billing milestones.
Checklist items
- Receive signed per-phase acceptance form from the buyer's executive sponsor
- Deployment runbook execution checklist signed by the deployment lead
- Rollback point created and restoration test passed
- Post-cutover data integrity reconciliation report approved by the data owner
- End-to-end smoke tests executed and results signed by QA lead
- Operational handover sign-off received from the named production owner
- Regulatory notification sent and acknowledgment received from the designated regulatory representative
- Access controls and environment configuration locked and approved by security and infrastructure owners
- Parallel-run completion log and exception resolution signed by the business owner
- Written billing milestone authorization obtained from the buyer's commercial approver
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Success
Measure realized cost takeout, run recurring success reviews, and maintain a shared channel for issues and enhancement requests.
Success Reviews
- Go-live Health Check (weeks 1-4)
- First Measurement Review (weeks 4-10)
- 90-Day Realization and Incumbent Decommission
- Operational Burn-down and Hypercare Review (monthly)
- Quarterly Business Review — Realization and Backlog
- Annual Executive Value Review
Issues & Enhancements
- Agree owners and timelines for top backlog items and any governance adjustments needed to accelerate realization.
- Produce regulator evidence package for any remaining control items and assign closure dates.
- Open-ticket burn-down review
- Reduce the open-ticket backlog and close high-severity incidents within agreed SLA windows.
- Clear or put on a documented remediation path all open regulatory acceptance items.
- Update ticket statuses and move resolved tickets to verification with dates for closure evidence.
- Publish updated runbook changes and verify rollback parameters in a test window.
- Compile regulatory evidence packets for any items moved to closed status.
- Executive metric summary
- Confirm quarter-to-date realization against Solution Scope targets and approve prioritized backlog items for closure.
- Re-confirm success criteria and owners
- Publish the quarterly realization pack with prioritized backlog and assigned owners.
- Open tactical tickets for the top 5 backlog items with completion targets for the quarter.
- Update the shared issues and enhancement channel with statuses and evidence of closure as items complete.
- Year-to-date value summary vs Solution Scope
- Provide a board-ready statement of realized value against the Solution Scope targets for the fiscal year.
- Agree the governance cadence and evidence requirements to sustain and report ongoing cost takeout.
- Deliver the annual value report suitable for board review, including reconciled financials and metric evidence.
- Document the agreed governance cadence and reporting templates for the coming year.
- List remaining high-level risks and commit to a remediation timeline for each.
- Verify the deployment components executed as planned and that named owners accept responsibility for open items.
- Establish a concrete remediation plan for all critical day-one blockers with target completion dates.
- Publish a one-page go-live health summary and list of open critical issues for distribution.
- Create remediation tickets for each critical blocker with target completion dates and monitoring cadence.
- Schedule the First Measurement Review in the 4-10 week window with required data sources identified.
- Present first-period data against Solution Scope targets
- Decide whether the named metrics are on a credible path to the Solution Scope targets or require escalation.
- Document corrective actions with target dates and owners for each off-track metric.
- Publish the metric dashboard showing current values, baseline, and Solution Scope targets.
- Open remediation tasks for each root cause with target resolution dates and verification steps.
- Confirm data owners and access paths for ongoing measurement extraction.
- Present 90-day realization vs Solution Scope targets
- Validate the 90-day realized cost takeout and reconcile that value to the Solution Scope targets for CFO review.
- Confirm the incumbent platform is decommissioned or formally retained-read-only with data archived and fallback habits closed.
- Deliver the 90-day realization report with financial reconciliation for the CFO and program governance pack.
- Execute outstanding decommission tasks or document retention rationale and archive verification artifacts.
- Triage top operational incidents
- Trend analysis and root-cause discussion
- Financial reconciliation and audit notes
- Deployment and migration validation
- Root-cause diagnosis for metric gaps
- Incumbent decommission checkpoint
- Agree corrective actions and timeline
- Operational and regulatory posture
- Regulatory controls and examiner alignment status
- Regulatory acceptance items status
- Early adoption signals and usage patterns
- Issues and enhancement backlog review
- Runbook and rollback readiness check
- Open issues and blockers
- Remediation plan and closure timeline
- Quarter plan and governance adjustments
- Confirm timeline to the next contractual milestone
- Governance and cadence for the coming year
- Immediate remediation actions