Core systems

The central bank originally established a 10-year time horizon for completing upgrades to the nation's aging electronic payment system. But a task force convened by the Fed thinks that's not ambitious enough.

Cloud Lending Solutions, a technology provider to marketplace lenders and other finance companies, announced that it has raised $8 million in venture funding.

Can true innovation happen when so much of the industry is still working on systems built in the 20th century?

Software problems have recently plagued Bank of New York Mellon, HSBC and the New York Stock Exchange. Thorough testing and new quality standards can help financial institutions weed out weaknesses in their code that could (literally) break the bank.

Standard Treasury, the startup that Silicon Valley Bank absorbed this month, is helping create software gateways for the institution's high-tech business clients to customize the way they interact with it.

FIS and merger partner SunGard, along with all other vendors in the space, have not been able to come to market with innovative core systems or software platforms that adequately address the new digital paradigm banks face.

The $9.1 billion acquisition of SunGard Data Systems would deepen FIS' bench in banking and asset management services and add products for capital markets, dovetailing with banks' desire to narrow the list of companies that serve them.

Community Trust in Ruston, La., took the rare step of replacing its hodgepodge legacy core system. The move should cut processing costs in half. In the meantime, the bank's taking a lot of calls from confused customers.

They're not ready to go all-in by putting core processing in the cloud, but community banks are experimenting with hybrid and quasi-cloud arrangements that offer low costs and rapid deployment.

A deal between two major fintech players to provide core processing hosted in the cloud raises the question of when U.S. banks will feel comfortable putting their most important data on publicly shared computers.

Kevin Cummings, the New Jersey company's CEO, transformed Investors to sizable bank prior to its second-step conversion last May. With $2.2 billion in capital and an updated core system, Cummings has his sights on the company's next growth phase.

Banks can expect to incur higher costs in several areas during the implementation of a settlement agreement to improve the accuracy of credit reports. But they might benefit in the long run by getting better information on borrowers.

Temenos, a Geneva-based provider of core banking software to the financial services industry, has acquired Akcelerant, a financial services software company based in Philadelphia.

Implementation has been slow going for the Banking Industry Architecture Network. But PNC says the framework is already helping the bank achieve some important IT goals, and could help the industry adapt to the cloud computing era.