Guides
Practical tools to help banks make smarter decisions.
Our guides are written for senior executives, transformation leaders, and operational decision–makers who need clarity before committing resources. Each guide is designed to move beyond theory and give you frameworks, checklists, and strategies that work in the real world.
Whether you’re exploring core banking upgrades, process optimization, or transformation planning, these guides support the critical thinking that happens between “we should” and “we’re ready.”
Practical tools to help banks make smarter decisions.
Download the Guides (Free)
No spam. No sales pitch. Just practical frameworks.
Available Guides
Who Should Download These Guides?
- Transformation leads tasked with planning a core upgrade
- CIOs looking for clarity before committing to vendor paths
- Banking executives validating their modernization strategy
“Trusted by 70+ bank leaders”
“Created by Veteran Practitioners, not consultants”
The Core Vendor Evaluation Playbook
Decision Intelligence for Core Banking Executives
The definitive playbook for choosing a core vendor without getting played.
Built from real-world evaluations, contract reviews, and failed vendor promises that cost banks millions.
Inside This Report
- A field-tested 10-chapter framework showing banking executives how to break vendor control, expose hidden weaknesses and reclaim leverage during core vendor evaluations.
-
Step-by-step guidance to see through demo theater, challenge vendor narratives and force real-world proof, not PowerPoint promises.
-
A complete set of high-pressure, off-script challenge questions that surface legacy technology, roadmap failures, contract traps, API limitations and real delivery capability.
- A “No Kool-Aid” scoring model and negotiation playbook that prevents vendor bias, protects leverage and ensures decisions are based on truth, trade-offs and long-term consequences rather than sales choreography.
-
Practical governance insights and post-selection strategies showing how the smartest banks turn vendor relationships into long-term competitive advantage, starting the moment after contract signature.
Key Insights:
-
Vendor selection is leverage.
Most banks give it away too early — the smart ones don’t.
-
Demos mislead.
They’re scripted, polished, and omit what really breaks at scale.
-
“Best fit” is fiction.
Trade-offs are inevitable — name them, plan for them, win with them.
-
Contracts conceal risk.
Auto-renewals, vague SLAs, and lock-ins are standard — unless you know where to look.
-
Go-live is Day 1.
The best banks govern the relationship, not just the system.
The Core Banking Starter Guide
The Readiness Advantage
Your bank’s core transformation starts before the RFP — with readiness.
This guide helps leaders build the foundations that determine project success
long before vendor demos or contract reviews.
Inside This Report
-
A practical, jargon-free breakdown of the real modernization options, from full replacement to phased rollout, API wrap-and-renovate strategies, and Banking-as-a-Service, illustrated with examples from banks like Commonwealth Bank of Australia and BBVA.
- Clear guidance on what to fix before you start, including detailed current-state mapping, product cataloging, interface inventory and operational process documentation, work that determines whether transformation succeeds or stalls.
-
The five execution disciplines that separate successful transformations from failed ones: business-led governance, early data cleanup, rigorous vendor selection, realistic timelines and real change management investment).
-
What strong implementation looks like: governance that makes decisions fast, smart architecture choices (cloud, APIs, migration methods) and transformation designed around today’s digital customer expectations.
-
A candid view of the five biggest risk, budget overruns, delays, data issues, business disruption and staff resistance, plus the mitigation actions that reduce them.
Key Insights:
-
Readiness gaps kill momentum.
Most delays aren’t technical — they’re operational, cultural, or strategic.
-
RFPs are downstream.
If you wait until procurement to align stakeholders, map current-state pain, or define future-state priorities — you’re already behind.
-
Transformation ≠ replacement.
A new core won’t fix broken processes. Execution-readiness beats tech-readiness every time.
-
Sequencing matters.
The best banks phase the work — they don’t front-load everything into “go-live.”
More guides are in development, including:
Have a suggestion for a guide topic? Let us know at
contact@coresystempartners.com