Impact Study

Impact Study: Payment Platform Due Diligence & U.S. Card and Unsecured Lending Strategy Assessment

When opinions on technology platforms became clouded and this North American When opinions on digital platforms became clouded and this North American bank's U.S. Credit Card & Unsecured Lending Strategy needed a fresh set of eyes, Mesh provided an objective assessment and a set recommendations.

Michael D. Kleinberg

• 2 min read
Impact Study: Payment Platform Due Diligence & U.S. Card and Unsecured Lending Strategy Assessment
Impact Study: Payment Platform Due Diligence & U.S. Card and Unsecured Lending Strategy Assessment.

When opinions on digital platforms became clouded and this North American bank's U.S. Credit Card & Unsecured Lending Strategy needed a fresh set of eyes, Mesh provided an independent objective assessment and a set of pragmatic recommendations.

Client: Multinational Fortune 500 Bank
Industry: Financial Services
Sponsor: EVP Consumer Products
Locale: North America (U.S. & CA)

The Challenge

A leading multinational bank needed to determine whether acquiring a payments platform would accelerate its U.S. Card Business Strategy. Executives needed an objective assessment of the viability of how the acquisition would (or would not) enable U.S. Card business, technology, and operations, as well as the level of difficulty to consume and integrate the platform, people, and technology.

Engagement Description

We engaged with the client’s leadership teams to get answers to the following:

  • What are the current capabilities of our and the M&A target’s major card platforms today?
  • Are these capabilities immediately usable, extensible, and fit for purpose?
  • By way of comparison, what effort would be required to modernize our existing platforms?
  • If an acquisition approach was taken, what would the ideal technology stack look like?
  • What effort and cost would be required to decouple one of the existing key platforms from its current installation and integrate it elsewhere?
  • How does this compare with the acquisition option, or building new?
  • What will be the key success factors to successfully pull this M&A off?
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"We wanted to grow our card business and we needed the right platform to grow it. This provided a real, independent assessment and plan for us." - VP of Card Technology

Outcomes Delivered

  • A level-set on the current platform landscape, along with a fact-based historical view of “how we got here.”
  • An evaluation of “readiness” for the acquisition and integration of one of the platform candidates.
  • A set of specific recommendations for the candidate platform across key evaluation domains, e.g., strategic alignment, current vs. desired capabilities, development considerations, time to market, etc.
  • A 90-day plan for the next steps in the evaluation and planning phases, as well as a 5-year program milestone plan with dependencies and critical success factors.