How Much Does FIS Core Banking Software Cost? A Data-Based Look

Core banking software underpins the daily operations of financial institutions, from managing accounts and payments to lending, compliance, and customer data in real time. As banks and fintechs accelerate digital transformation, demand for scalable and cloud-ready platforms has grown, making them critical for launching new services and meeting rising client expectations.

For decision-makers, selecting the right core banking system is one of the most important technology choices. Yet, pricing transparency remains limited. Vendors like FIS typically do not publish costs, leaving institutions to engage in lengthy sales processes before receiving concrete figures.

This article, prepared by the SDK.finance team, draws on FIS’s latest official financial results to provide an indicative benchmark of costs. The goal is to help FinTech startups, banks, and financial organisations enter vendor conversations with a clearer understanding of the potential investment involved.

Key takeaway

FIS Banking Solutions generated 6,892 billion US dollars in 2024 revenue, of which 5,752 billion US dollars was recurring. Depending on how many institutions are in scope, the implied average annual spend per institution ranges from around 290,000 US dollars to 1 million US dollars.

About FIS

Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) is a global provider of financial technology headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. Founded in 1968, FIS has grown into one of the world’s largest FinTech companies, employing over 60,000 people worldwide.

The company operates across three main segments: Banking Solutions, Capital Market Solutions, and Corporate/Other. Its Banking Solutions division delivers core banking platforms, card issuing and processing, digital channels, risk management tools, and payment services to thousands of financial institutions globally.

With its global footprint and broad portfolio, FIS is considered a tier-one core banking vendor, alongside Temenos, Infosys Finacle, and Oracle FLEXCUBE.

What the official numbers show

• Banking Solutions revenue (2024): 6,892 billion US dollars.

• ARR (annual recurring revenue): 5,752 billion US dollars (about 83.5% of the segment).

• Context: Following the Worldpay divestiture in January 2024, FIS now reports Banking Solutions separately from Merchant Solutions, focusing disclosures on core processing and related products.

Methodology

We apply a simple benchmark approach: divide annual recurring revenue by an approximate number of client institutions.

• FIS does not disclose exact client counts in its 10-K. Public materials state FIS serves around 20,000 clients worldwide, while the official FIS website references about 5,800 clients.

• Banking Solutions revenue includes more than core software: digital channels, card issuing, risk, and more. The result is therefore a blended benchmark.

• The source for financial data is the FIS Form 10-K 2024 – the company’s annual filing with the SEC, which provides audited segment revenues and notes on discontinued operations.

Source: FIS’s official website

Disclaimer

The calculations in this article are estimates based on publicly available financial reports. They are intended to provide directional benchmarks only. Actual costs for FIS core banking software vary widely depending on the specific platform chosen, the scope of services, transaction volumes, and individual contract negotiations.

For an accurate quote, financial institutions should engage directly with FIS or an authorised partner.

Benchmarks using ARR

The formula is straightforward:

ARR ÷ Number of clients = Average annual cost per contract

Scenario 1: 20,000 clients

• Average annual cost per contract: ~290,000 US dollars annually.

Scenario 2: 5,800 clients

• Average annual cost per contract: ~990,000 US dollars annually.

ARR (USD)	Assumed clients	Average annual cost per contract (USD)
5,752 billion	5,800	990,000
5,752 billion	20,000	290,000

What shapes actual pricing

The actual cost depends on multiple factors and can vary significantly between institutions. For example, large banks may easily pay around 1 million US dollars annually, while smaller companies often fall in the range of a few hundred thousand US dollars per year.

• Platform selection: Modern Banking Platform vs established cores (Profile, IBS, Horizon).

• Scope: Core accounts only vs full suite (cards, lending, treasury, analytics, risk).

• Implementation effort: Data migration, integrations, conversion.

• Volume tiers: Processing fees and service-level agreements.

On forums like Reddit, FinTech founders often cite annual costs in the $400k–$1m range for tier-one vendors like FIS, Temenos, and others. This matches the midpoints of our benchmark ranges.

Beyond FIS, there are alternative solutions designed to deliver faster time to market, simplified licensing, and rapid knowledge transfer for your team when acquiring a source code license. One such alternative is the SDK.finance platform.

About SDK.finance

SDK.finance is a white-label FinTech platform that provides the full technology stack for launching digital financial products quickly. The platform includes:

• Core engine with 60+ modules and a ledger-based foundation.

• 470+ API endpoints for extensive integration and customisation.

• Pre-built interfaces: Web, iOS, and Android apps are included, so there’s no need to start from scratch.

• Backoffice for operational teams and merchant portals for business clients.

• Deployment flexibility: available as a subscription (cloud-based) or a source code licence (with full ownership and unlimited customisation).

• Scalable performance: over 2,700 transactions per second on baseline hardware.

• Compliance: PCI DSS Level 1 and ISO 27001:2022 certified.

SDK.finance offers a flexible alternative: a white-label core and wallet engine available either as source code licence (full ownership, unlimited customisation) or SaaS (lower upfront cost, faster launch). Built on a ledger-based architecture with 60+ modules and 470+ APIs, it provides banks and FinTechs with a robust foundation to compete effectively.