Pushing into Gartner's elusive top right magic quadrant?

Gartner’s International Retail Core Banking Magic Quadrant is used by many banks as a default shortlist for vendor selection in core system replacement. The coveted top right hand corner – the ‘leaders’ quadrant – is a battleground between the leading core banking technology providers: Infosys, Temenos, Misys, Callataÿ and Wouters and Fiserv, to name but a few.

Each year, CMOs, product managers and analyst relations managers devote hundreds of man hours completing the report survey, pulling together customer references and providing demos.

Part of the judging criteria is a vendor’s commitment to initiatives such as participation in banking industry standards organisations and other industry groups – such as OMG, IFX, ISO20022 and BIAN. Vendors who take an active role in developing these standards gain a better overall score in the magic quadrant as a result.

The reason for this is that Gartner recognises the potential of open standards in shaping the direction of the banking industry and advises banks to “seek solutions from vendors that are directly or indirectly participating in open industry standards to increase agility and interoperability”.

By participating in working groups with banks about the future of banking IT infrastructure and the agreed protocols and semantic standards, software vendors have a competitive edge and greater insight to provide solutions which meet the needs of the most innovative banks.