What does it take to build a core banking platform fit for the next era of financial services?
We started with seven uncompromising principles needed for the core of ‘2040’.
PART OF THE CORE BANKING PLAYBOOK SERIES
Part 1 —> How to buy a 4th-gen core banking system
Part 2 —> How to migrate to a 4th-gen core banking system
Part 3 —> How to unlock commercial value from your 4th-generation core
Core banking systems have long been a source of frustration for financial institutions. Tightly coupled architectures, vendor dependency, painful upgrades, and a chronic inability to respond quickly to regulatory change, these are problems the industry has lived with for decades.
When we set out to build a 4th-generation core banking platform, we didn't want to iterate on those constraints. We wanted to eliminate them. To do that, we established seven foundational design principles: a set of goals we believed were non-negotiable for any modern core. We call them the Magnificent Seven.
The framework
The Magnificent Seven
Here's what they are, and why each one matters:
Self-sufficiency
1. The power to build products yourself
For decades, banks were beholden to their core vendors. Customisation was difficult, expensive, and frequently impossible without specialist resources. Regulatory changes demanded responses in timeframes that legacy systems simply couldn't meet.
Our first and most fundamental principle was giving financial institutions the ability to build products themselves, through configuration where possible, and code where needed. Both capabilities sit directly in the hands of the customer.
This unlocks three critical things: launching new front-book products quickly, migrating legacy books onto a modern platform, and responding to regulatory change in good time, without waiting in a vendor queue to do it.
Composability
2. Best-practice, reusable building blocks
Self-sufficiency doesn't mean starting from scratch every time. Our second principle was ensuring the platform ships with a rich, battle-tested library of reusable modules, pre-built components covering distinct product functionality that banks can compose dynamically into any product type.
Rather than siloed product modules (a "loan module" or a "current account module"), we took a horizontal approach. An interest calculator, for example, isn't tied to a deposit or a loan, it simply calculates interest. How it's configured and where it's applied is entirely up to the bank assembling the product.
This composable model eliminates repetition, accelerates time-to-market, and ensures that every building block is shared, tested, and constantly improving across the entire customer base.
In Australia, our latest client built their product suite on the platform in two weeks, spending the following weeks connecting integrations, not configuring core logic.
Developer experience
3. Language of choice
Our third principle was simple: let banks use the languages and skill sets they already have. Whether a team is Java-heavy, .NET-native, or Python-first, they can build against and extend our platform without retooling. You keep your existing talent and your existing culture - and you still get access to a Tier 1-grade core.
Enterprise grade
4. Market-leading security and resiliency
Critically, every customer (regardless of size) runs on the same hardened platform. The security, resilience, and observability that works for a global Tier 1 bank works identically for a mutual, a credit union, or a digital challenger. There is one codebase, one standard, and no tiered product.
We chose 10x because we needed a modern scalable core banking platform built on micro-services and accessible via APIs, in order to drive rapid product development and to provide our customers with a world class experience.
Sanjiv Somani Former CEO Chase UK
Continuous delivery
5. Forward-compatible, non-breaking upgrades
We designed upgrades to be a non-event. Continuous, non-breaking feature releases and security fixes are deployed on an ongoing basis. Every customer runs on our latest version. Existing integrations and customisations remain intact. We've passed 100 feature releases with every customer on the current version, and they've never had to choose between staying current and staying stable.
Real-time intelligence
6. Event-driven, real-time data access
Our platform is event-sourced by design: every action, every transaction, every state change is immediately available as a real-time event stream. There are no overnight batch processes, no stale data dumps, no copying and restoring of databases. Your data environment, your AI models, your downstream systems, all fed in real time, from the core itself.
As banks begin to reconsider origination flows, digital channels, and how they apply AI to both structured and unstructured data, having a core that natively streams events isn't a nice-to-have. It's foundational.
Legacy modernisation
7. Migration as a first-class citizen
Rather than treating migration as a third-party problem or an afterthought, we built migration tooling directly into the core itself. Banks can move data and products onto the platform in a controlled, reliable way, giving them a credible path to decommissioning legacy infrastructure and genuinely shutting down old systems.
Principles that scale with you
That's the architecture we believe modern financial services demands, not a marginal improvement on the systems of the last generation, but a genuine step change in what a core banking platform can and should do.
Every one of our customers is referenceable. We think that says something.
A practical guide on how to buy a 4th-gen core banking system
Our how to buy a 4th-gen core playbook is full of no-nonsense practical information to help your buying journey. Inside you'll find:
- Expert perspectives on the future of banking
- Advice on creating a business case that survives the journey
- How to navigate the trade‑offs behind closed-box and open-ended cores
- Buyer checkpoints
- Evaluation criteria
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Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions
Q: What is a 4th-generation core banking platform? A 4th-generation core banking platform is a cloud-native, event-driven, API-first architecture built on microservices. Unlike legacy mainframe or client-server systems, it supports real-time data processing, multi-tenancy, polyglot development, and continuous product delivery without requiring structural rework for each change.
Q: What does self-sufficiency mean in the context of core banking? Self-sufficiency means financial institutions can build, configure, and launch products themselves, through configuration where possible and custom code where needed, without waiting in a vendor development queue. Both capabilities sit directly in the hands of the bank's own team.
Q: What is composable banking? Composable banking refers to assembling financial products from a library of reusable, independently configurable modules, rather than using siloed product systems such as a dedicated loan module or current account module. A composable approach reduces repetition, accelerates time-to-market, and enables product teams to move faster without rebuilding core logic from scratch.
Q: Why does programming language choice matter in a core banking platform? Traditional core banking systems require specialist developers familiar with proprietary languages or frameworks. A platform that supports multiple mainstream languages, including Java, Python, JavaScript, Go, and .NET, allows banks to build and extend the platform using their existing engineering talent, without retooling teams or concentrating knowledge in high-risk ways.
Q: What does it mean for a core banking platform to be event-driven? An event-driven core means every transaction, account action, and state change is immediately available as a real-time event stream. There are no overnight batch processes and no stale data. Downstream systems, AI models, and digital channels all receive live data from the core itself, which is essential for real-time personalisation, fraud detection, and AI-driven decisioning.
Q: Why is built-in migration tooling important in a modern core banking platform? Banks replacing a core must migrate decades of existing products and customer data. Treating migration as an afterthought, or delegating it entirely to third parties, increases risk and slows decommissioning of legacy systems. Platforms that include migration tooling natively give banks a controlled, reliable path to shutting down old infrastructure rather than running legacy and modern systems in parallel indefinitely.
Q: What is the difference between a 4th-generation core and a re-hosted legacy system? A re-hosted legacy system moves existing monolithic code onto cloud infrastructure without redesigning its architecture. It retains tightly coupled release cycles, upgrade risk, and batch processing. A genuine 4th-generation core is built from the ground up as microservices, streams events in real time, supports non-breaking upgrades, and allows banks to build products independently. The difference becomes visible when transaction volumes rise, regulations change, or new products need to launch at speed.
