The best financial services software for mid-tier banks with a limited budget

Jack Henry's annual report says SilverLake, a core system designed primarily for commercial-focused banks, currently serves banks with $1 billion to $55 billion in assets, and that clients on Jack Henry's private cloud get support as part of the monthly fee. That is why we name Jack Henry the best financial services software for a mid-tier bank with a limited budget, on two conditions: the bank is a commercial bank that wants to outsource its core processing, and it accepts the per-account fees and minimum guaranteed payments the same filing describes.

Fiserv is the better pick for a bank that wants to keep processing in its own data center or run a hybrid: Fiserv sells Premier for in-house, outsourced or hybrid delivery on IBM or Unisys hardware. FIS is the better pick for a bank that wants to license its core and pay maintenance, or to have FIS manage processing at the bank's own site. FIS's annual report describes both arrangements, alongside hosting in an FIS data center or private cloud.

What should a mid-tier bank with a limited budget weigh in a core contract?

The federal banking agencies' guidance on third-party risk lists the cost details a contract should describe, among them the schedule for base services, volume-based fees, charges for special requests and responsibility for hardware and software. Have each quote name processing, hosting, software maintenance and support, and state which of those items each fee covers. A fee billed per account with a guaranteed minimum sets a floor the bank pays if its account count falls, so ask for the minimum in dollars and the account count behind it. The American Bankers Association's principles for core provider relationships call for every invoice to be traceable to the fee schedule the bank agreed to.

The same guidance names the conditions or limits on price changes among those cost details. Read the increase formula and the notice deadline in each proposal before you compare the monthly prices. The ABA principles also ask for contract expirations to line up.

Termination planning, in the agencies' guidance, covers the cost of ending the contract, the time a transition takes, the replacement providers available and what happens to the bank's data. The ABA principles ask for termination and deconversion charges to be disclosed. Ask each vendor to put the early-termination formula and the deconversion fees, in dollars, in the contract it quotes.

Farmers National Banc reported a consulting charge for choosing its next core, and Suffolk Bancorp reported a charge that went mostly to ending its existing contracts. Neither of those lines is a vendor price or the full cost of a project. Use reported conversions to list the cost lines your own budget needs, and take the amounts from references at banks near your size that have finished the move.

Jack Henry states in dollars the asset sizes of the banks now running SilverLake, and FIS's product page for IBS describes that core's market in words, as community through large regional institutions. Ask each vendor for the asset sizes of banks now running the core it proposes, and request references you can contact at banks near your size.

Jack Henry, Fiserv and FIS on fees, terms and exit

Conversions three banks have reported

Jack Henry: SilverLake with support inside the monthly fee

Jack Henry's annual report gives the asset range of the banks now on SilverLake. The filing adds that some smaller and newly chartered banks choose SilverLake too, so the range describes its clients and sets no floor. A bank built mainly on consumer accounts should ask Jack Henry which of its cores it would propose, because the filing describes this one as designed primarily for commercial-focused banks.

Clients that outsource core processing to Jack Henry typically sign six-year contracts, the filing says, and those contracts carry the per-account fees and guaranteed minimums. Support for private-cloud clients comes from the same infrastructure that serves on-premise clients, and its cost is part of the monthly private-cloud fee. For a bank with a limited budget, that puts the support it relies on after go-live inside the monthly number in the proposal.

A bank that prefers to run the core at its own site licenses the software under Jack Henry's standard license agreement, and on-premise clients typically pay annual maintenance. That is a separate arrangement with its own support terms, so read it on its own if you are weighing it against the private cloud.

The filing treats renewal as the point where clients consider other providers or renegotiate scope and price. It also describes deconversion fees, which come due when a cloud, processing or long-term on-premise support contract ends early, most commonly after the client is acquired by another institution. Ask Jack Henry to write the fee formula and the scope of its exit assistance into the contract it quotes.

Farmers National Banc, with $5.24 billion in assets at the end of September 2025, said in its third-quarter release that it had decided to move to SilverLake in 2026. The bank booked a $3.1 million charge that quarter for consulting, which its quarterly report ties to the core selection and the Jack Henry contract negotiation, and it forecast savings of about $2.0 million a year once the conversion is complete. The charge paid advisers and the savings figure is the bank's forecast, so neither shows what Jack Henry charges.

Fiserv: Premier run in-house or as a hybrid

Fiserv's Premier page offers the core for in-house, outsourced or hybrid delivery on IBM or Unisys hardware, with add-ons such as digital banking and data vaulting. Fiserv's annual report says account processing is sold mainly as an outsourced service and is also installed on systems the client owns or a third party hosts. Ask Fiserv which hardware and operating work the proposed Premier configuration requires.

Across the whole company, the report says, processing revenue comes from account-based and transaction-based fees under multi-year contracts, typically at a fixed or declining tiered price per unit, sometimes with fixed or monthly minimums. That description spans Fiserv's merchant and financial businesses, so the per-unit tiers and any minimum for Premier are numbers to get in the quote.

The agreement Community Shores Bank signed with Fiserv in June 2015, filed with the SEC, set an initial term to May 31, 2021 and one-year renewals after it unless written notice was given 180 days ahead. From 2018 Fiserv could raise fees each year on notice, by no more than the change in CPI-U.

The early-termination fee in that agreement was the average monthly invoice over the prior six months, times 65%, times the months left in the term, plus conversion fees and third-party costs not yet amortized, and deconversion charges followed the schedule for each service. Those were one bank's negotiated terms in that year. The cap on increases and the termination multiplier are the clauses to read first in a contract Fiserv offers now.

Suffolk Bancorp, a bank with $2.2 billion in assets at the end of 2015, announced that December that it had signed with Fiserv to move its core and many ancillary products to Premier. It booked a $1.4 million charge in the fourth quarter, largely payments to end contracts with its prior core provider and other vendors, and forecast go-live for the second quarter of 2016.

FIS: a licensed core or processing managed at your site

FIS's annual report describes delivery that runs from managed processing, at the client's site or hosted in an FIS data center or private cloud, to license and maintenance arrangements. A bank that wants to hold the license to its core, or to keep the system on its own premises with FIS managing the processing, finds both choices on that list. The same report says the work FIS has under contract is mostly recurring account-based and volume-based processing, a description of the whole company. FIS's IBS page positions that core for community through large regional institutions, and FIS presents HORIZON as its core for community banks.

Independent Bank Corp., the parent of Rockland Trust, filed its FIS agreement when it extended its existing FIS services in 2015. The order for core processing and Horizon software carried a 72-month initial term and 12-month renewals unless either side gave written notice at least 180 days before the term ended. A CPI-U adjustment could raise fees once a calendar year and could not lower them. The base fee paid for the software processing and maintenance listed in the agreement, and equipment upgrades and conversion or deconversion costs sat outside it.

On early termination, that agreement charged the greatest of a percentage of average monthly fees, any minimum fees or a percentage of the estimated monthly charge, multiplied by the months remaining, plus FIS's costs from the termination and unpaid one-time fees. It released the bank's data once the bank had signed a deconversion confidentiality agreement, paid the amounts outstanding, made a deposit or prepaid the deconversion fees and agreed a deconversion date. A bank taking a quote from FIS now should get those percentages and the deconversion fees in dollars before it signs.

Business First Bancshares reported in its release for the second quarter of 2025 that it had converted its core processing for loans, deposits and the general ledger to FIS. The bank held about $7.95 billion in assets at June 30 and added back $1,224,000 of core conversion expense for the first six months of the year in its non-GAAP reconciliation. That add-back is one expense category, so it shows neither the full cost of the project nor what FIS charged.

Which core should a mid-tier bank with a limited budget choose?

Jack Henry is our pick for a mid-tier commercial bank with a limited budget that plans to outsource its core. Its filing describes SilverLake as designed primarily for commercial-focused banks. It also tells you how the outsourced fee is built and that support is part of the monthly private-cloud fee, so you read the monthly figure in a proposal knowing support is in it.

Outsourced clients typically sign for the full term shown in the table, with minimum payments guaranteed for the whole period, and a bank that is sold or changes course before the end owes deconversion fees. We still weigh the included support and the commercial-bank design above the length of the term for a bank whose requirements fit the proposal and that accepts the proposed term and minimums.

Before you name a cost winner, send Jack Henry, Fiserv and FIS the same written scope, with the same account counts and list of services. Compare what comes back on the monthly fee, the guaranteed minimum, the increase clause and the exit formula.

All three sell outsourced processing. Fiserv is the better pick when the bank wants processing in its own data center, or in a hybrid arrangement, on the IBM or Unisys hardware Premier runs on.

FIS is the better pick for a bank that wants to hold a license to its core and pay maintenance, or to keep the system on its own premises with FIS managing the processing. FIS's annual report describes both arrangements, and the Independent Bank Corp. agreement shows a bank paying a base fee to FIS while funding its own equipment upgrades.

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