A practical guide to buying, migrating, and extending a 4th-generation core banking system.
We begin with a simple assumption: if you are reading this, you’re considering buying a core banking system.
As such, we won’t rehearse the usual reasons why change is inevitable. We’ll just accept that change is inevitable and advance, in fact, that 2026 is the year when the cost of not changing a core system will exceed the cost of change.
Instead, we’ll focus on the how because strategy is theoretical until it meets execution – until the rubber hits the road.
In this first part of the playbook, we start with how to choose the right core. In part 2, we explore how institutions can migrate to the chosen platform, and in part 3 we examine how that core can be extended to achieve technical autonomy without accumulating technical debt.
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Your practical guide to buying a 4th-generation core banking system.
Part 1: How to buy a 4th-generation core
A decision that defines a decade.
Buying a core is often framed as a technology decision. In reality, it is much more. It is a structural decision about how a financial institution will compete, scale and evolve, and how quickly it can do so. Its consequences therefore will span a decade or more.
Part 1 focuses on how to choose correctly: what defines a 4th-generation core, where trade-offs arise, how risks shift rather than disappear, how to build a business case, and how to embed an operating model that sustains change over time.
What's inside?
A strategic, no‑nonsense breakdown of everything leaders need before embarking on a core transformation.
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How to choose the right 4th‑generation core: Understand what truly makes a core composposable, cloud‑native, upgradeable, and built for real‑time data flows; and how to tell modern architecture from modern “veneer.”
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How to balance flexibility, simplicity & long‑term resilience: Explore the trade‑offs behind closed-box and open-ended cores, and why the real question is where complexity will accumulate, and who will own it.
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Designing the institution before selecting the platform: Learn why the most successful transformations begin with strategy and operating model design, not feature comparison or vendor pitches.
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How to build a business case that survives the journey: A practical framework across operational, commercial, structural, and strategic economics; including the rising opportunity cost of standing still.
Banks don’t think five to ten years ahead. Prioritising day-one functionality may not give banks the long-term architectural freedom to scale and adapt.
Simon Farmilo Global Banking Partnerships Director, GFT
What's inside?
A practical guide on how to buy a 4th-gen core banking system
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