What Gartner gets wrong in Financial Services
Gartner's approach to Financial Services technology follows the same model that has driven their recent performance problems. Research firm operating a consulting practice — no engineering capability, no delivery infrastructure, no compliance architecture depth
Financial Services technology operates under specific regulatory and operational constraints that generalist consulting firms consistently underestimate. Fintechs face fragmented, rapidly evolving regulatory environments across AML, KYC, data privacy, and AI governance. Gartner's model does not account for the domain qualification required to navigate this environment.
Compliance in Financial Services is not a consulting deliverable — it is an architectural constraint. Gartner treats compliance as a separate workstream that produces documentation. The systems that result require significant remediation before they can survive an audit in a financial services environment.
What we deploy instead
Our financial services engineering teams are domain-qualified before they are assigned to an engagement. They understand the regulatory framework — SOC 2 and PCI DSS — as an engineering constraint, not a compliance checklist.
Every system we deploy for a financial services client is compliant at the infrastructure layer. The architecture enforces the controls. ALICE validates compliance at every commit. The result is a system that passes audits because it was built to, not because documentation was assembled after the fact.
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
SOC 2 and PCI DSS compliance is an architectural constraint in financial services. Gartner treats it as a consulting deliverable. We build it into the infrastructure.
What switching from Gartner looks like
A typical financial services engagement runs 10-20 weeks to a production system. Team: 8-16 engineers, all domain-qualified. Fixed price. Full IP transfer at 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 Gartner engagement — from emergency stabilisation through full re-platforming. 4-phase playbook covering stabilise, assess, transition, and normalise.