Core-Banking Vendor Exit Board Adviser

The mandate

The bank must decide whether to renew, progressively unbundle or replace a core platform that supports deposits, lending, fees and branch operations. Management’s options rely on supplier-provided extraction assumptions, while years of customisation have embedded the vendor in end-of-day repair, regulatory reporting and product configuration. The board’s continuing question is whether the proposed exit creates genuine bargaining and operating freedom or only transfers dependency into a new commercial wrapper.

The adviser will examine one decision pack each month, conduct targeted sessions with sourcing and operational owners, attend three Madrid meetings and observe a dependency walkthrough. Reviews will challenge data egress, intellectual-property boundaries, service continuity, custom-code ownership, key-person reliance, transition assistance, parallel-run cost and reversibility. Each intervention will distinguish contractual leverage from technical readiness and from the bank’s own capacity to absorb responsibility.

The appointment runs for eight months through renewal notice and target-route decisions. A continuation can occur only through an explicit technology-committee resolution after the bank has exercised an extraction proof, agreed its operating capability gaps and selected a commercial path. The term should end once directors can compare renewal and exit on equivalent evidence; it is not designed to shadow a multi-year implementation.

This adviser has neither line authority nor executive responsibility for supplier negotiation, platform selection, regulated outsourcing approval, architecture, migration delivery or customer communications. Executives own proposals and negotiation; directors retain reserved commitments. The adviser may challenge a claimed walk-away position and demand missing evidence, but cannot signal approval to the incumbent, alternative vendors or regulators on the bank’s behalf.

Conflicts must disclose current or recent ties to the incumbent, competing core vendors, systems integrators, banks, private-equity sponsors and transaction advisers. Vendor-sensitive material will be segregated when required, and recusal applies to any option involving a material prior relationship. The adviser will accept no referral, placement or success fee and cannot bid for the downstream platform selection or exit programme.

Why the board wants this voice

The incumbent possesses more evidence about extraction difficulty than the bank, while prospective vendors benefit from portraying transition as routine. Internal sourcing teams are also measured on the renewal event, not the decade of operating consequences that follows. Directors want an experienced platform-exit voice who can test both dependency and leverage, reveal what the bank must learn for itself and prevent a false deadline from becoming strategy.

What you will own

• Challenge the inventory of contractual, data, code, operational, regulatory, knowledge and tooling dependencies on the incumbent platform.
• Test whether extraction formats preserve business meaning, history, audit lineage, product state and usable reconciliation controls.
• Examine transition-assistance rights, change freezes, licence tails, stranded environments, key-person access and supplier cooperation incentives.
• Compare renew, unbundle and replace routes using equivalent service risk, capability build, coexistence cost and reversibility assumptions.
• Review negotiating positions for credible alternatives, decision deadlines, concession value and unintended reduction of future exit rights.
• Surface internal operating capabilities the bank must establish before supplier responsibilities can safely move or fragment.
• Leave directors with decision gates for evidence, commercial commitment, regulatory engagement and accountable risk acceptance.

Candidate qualifications

• Has governed the exit, unbundling or material renegotiation of a core banking platform at board or executive-committee level.
• Understands deposit, lending, fee, product, batch, reporting and branch dependencies hidden behind apparently standard platform services.
• Has tested data egress and transition assistance through executed proofs rather than relying solely on contractual wording.
• Can separate supplier leverage, architectural feasibility, regulatory outsourcing obligations and the bank’s own operational readiness.
• Has resisted both incumbent lock-in narratives and replacement-vendor optimism during a consequential notice or renewal window.
• Advises without pursuing platform selection, integration or commercial brokerage work that would compromise the exit recommendation.

Non-negotiables

• Can attend all Madrid decision sessions and the scheduled operational dependency walkthrough during the eight-month term.
• Will disclose vendor, integrator, investor, bank and transaction relationships before receiving any supplier-confidential material.
• Brings an executed core-platform exit or unbundling; general technology procurement and contract negotiation are insufficient.
• Will not accept contingent fees or compete for downstream selection, implementation, migration or managed-service work.

1. 49 words maximum. Which core-platform dependency most often invalidates a bank’s claimed walk-away position?
2. 49 words maximum. How would you prove that exported account data remains operationally and auditorily usable?
3. 49 words maximum. Describe a renewal concession you would reject because it weakened a later exit.