What Deloitte gets wrong in Financial Services
Deloitte's banking practice produces two things consistently: 18-month transformation roadmaps and 36-month transformation timelines. The difference is funded by change orders, additional phases, and scope expansions that are presented to the client as necessary evolutions of the original strategy.
Core banking transformation programs at Deloitte are staffed with strategy consultants who understand the PowerPoint deck of a modernization program better than they understand the transaction processing constraints of a live banking system. The engineers come later, after the architecture has been decided by people who will not be responsible for implementing it.
Regulatory compliance in banking is not something Deloitte builds into systems — it is something they consult on. BSA/AML, Basel III, Dodd-Frank — they produce gap assessments and remediation roadmaps. The actual remediation is another engagement, another team, another budget.
What we deploy instead
Banking modernization requires engineers who have run a parallel-system cutover on a live transaction processing environment. We staff these engagements with engineers who have that specific experience. The architecture is designed by the engineers who will implement it.
We use ClaireOS and ProofGrid for banking compliance automation — embedded in the production architecture, not layered on as a reporting tool. Every transaction processed through a system we build is auditable from day one.
SOC 2 and PCI DSS built into the architecture from day one — enforced automatically by ALICE at every commit.
Fixed-price engagements. Production system in 8-20 weeks. No discovery phase. No change orders.
Domain-qualified engineers with financial services experience. The senior engineer who scopes the engagement is the senior engineer who delivers it.
Full source code and documentation transferred at close. No licensing. No managed services dependency.
The compliance difference
Basel III, Dodd-Frank, BSA/AML, and CRA compliance are engineering problems, not consulting problems. We solve them in the architecture, not in a separate workstream.
What switching from Deloitte looks like
Core banking modernization: 20-32 weeks to a parallel-run production system. Regulatory remediation: 8-16 weeks. Team: 10-18 engineers with banking technology qualification. Fixed price. Senior engineers on the project from kickoff to close.
Architecture review and scope definition. We review existing deliverables and identify gaps.
Scope locked, team assembled, first sprint underway. Working code from week two.
First production milestone — a working integration or system component, not a document.
Full IP transfer. Source code, documentation, operational runbooks. Your team runs the system.
Failed Vendor Recovery Playbook
Step-by-step framework for recovering from a failed Deloitte engagement — from emergency stabilisation through full re-platforming. 4-phase playbook covering stabilise, assess, transition, and normalise.