Every financial institution is in the process of evaluating its own technology strategy. A big part of that evaluation involves determining which parts of its internal ecosystem can be built, maintained and evolved by in-house teams, versus which capabilities are more effectively and efficiently procured from specialist technology partners.

When considering the question of buy versus build for financial crime prevention platforms specifically, there are five key considerations for teams in their evaluation process.

1.  What does best-in-class financial crime prevention look like?

Speed, accuracy, adaptability and transparency: the four pillars of best-in-class financial crime prevention. In-house teams have to evaluate how they can best build towards these four pillars, and whether that is a homegrown product, a complete outsourcing, or a hybrid approach including best-of-breed solution partners.

2.  What is the total cost of ownership?

Every project has to be evaluated in terms of its business case. But for software the business case includes total cost of ownership (TCO) calculations, which extend to include the people,  programs and hardware throughout the lifecycle of the solution.

3.  What are the specific needs of your financial institution?

Your organization’s needs will be well understood internally. The focus will be on the core business, which may be banking or payments services. Any technology decisions will need to align to that overarching business strategy.

4. What is your FI’s technology modernization strategy?

APIs, platform, cloud… whatever the key component of your organization’s technology modernization strategy your financial crime prevention platform will need to align to secure the support of the CIO or CTO. Additionally, it will need to align with your Data Science approach and the reality of your organization’s current capabilities in the field.

5. Who is the right vendor partner?

To evaluate the right vendor partner financial institutions need to do their research. Due diligence will include checking customer references, analyst evaluations, and meeting the experts in the team.

Read our complete guide to evaluating your buy versus build strategy below.

You can also watch our webinar ‘The Secret to the Perfect Tech Delivery’ here.