Why every digital banking evaluation needs an RFP
A strong Request for Proposal (RFP) protects your institution from costly surprises, bringing structure to your process, clarity to your vendor comparisons, and credibility to the decision you’re leading your team through. That’s why a formal RFP process isn’t just helpful, it’s essential.
What an RFP actually does (and why it matters)
An RFP creates clarity for both sides. It forces vendors to articulate how they meet your needs (or don’t) and ensures your internal teams are aligned around what matters most.
A good RFP helps you:
- Define your must-haves: technical, functional, and strategic
- Ask consistent questions across vendors
- Uncover red flags before contract time
- Compare proposals side-by-side
- Gain clarity on a vendor’s corporate strategy & vision
Why skipping the RFP is a risk you don’t want to take
Without a structured RFP process, you risk:
- Letting vendors guide the conversation around their strengths, not your needs
- Missing input from internal teams that will live in the platform every day
- Realizing functional or integration gaps after the contract is signed
- Losing site of your internal goals in a maze of features and roadmap promises
- Having no consistent framework to compare options or explain decisions to stakeholders
What a good RFP reveals about a vendor
With a thoughtfully written RFP, you’ll learn:
- How deeply the vendor understands financial institutions like yours
- Whether their roadmap aligns with your innovation goals
- How flexible and open their platform actually is
- Realistic timelines for implementation
- How they approach partnership, communication, and support
Download the Sample Digital Banking RFP Template
To help you build your own, we’ve created a fully editable Sample RFP Template built by experts and structured for real-world use.
- Executive overview and goal-setting prompts
- Pre-built sections for UX, data, security, APIs, integrations
- Functional & technical deep dive questions
- Timeline templates and evaluation criteria prompts
- Editable response formats to compare vendor answers
You can share it with your stakeholders, modify it to fit your needs, and send it to every vendor you’re considering. It’s your playbook for running a smart, aligned, high-impact digital banking vendor evaluation.
