Case Study

How a FinTech giant migrated card management across 5 institutions and kept every transaction intact

How UST Tailwind rebuilt FIS’s card management platform across five financial institutions without missing a transaction

Card programs generate revenue every single day. There's no pause button during a migration. Across five institutions, Tailwind kept every program live, every cardholder served, and every revenue stream intact. Read the story to see how the team did it.
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OUR CLIENT

FIS Global is among the largest financial technology companies on earth, delivering core banking, payment processing, and card management infrastructure to thousands of institutions worldwide. CardSuite Pro is FIS’s modern credit and debit card management platform, built to replace a legacy predecessor and deliver richer functionality, deeper engagement capabilities, and stronger interchange and interest income outcomes for partner financial institutions.

THE CHALLENGE

Migrating revenue-critical card programs across five institutions, one shared platform, zero tolerance for gaps

Card programs sit at the center of financial institution revenue. Interchange fees and interest income depend directly on card functionality being available, accurate, and engaging. For FIS, the migration to CardSuite Pro wasn’t optional; staying on the legacy tool meant leaving capability and FI revenue on the table.

But the migration came with compounding complexity:

  1. Five institutions, five integration profiles. Each of the five FIs ran on the Q2 digital banking platform but had distinct configurations, data structures, and cardholder environments. A single integration approach wouldn’t work; each required custom development.
  2. Revenue was on the line throughout. Card programs generate interchange and interest income every day. Any gap in capability during the migration: a failed feature, a data inconsistency, a delayed cutover, translated directly into lost revenue for partner institutions.
  3. Phase 2 was already in scope. FIS wasn’t just replacing what existed; it was building toward an expanded feature set targeted for late 2025. The integration architecture needed to support that roadmap from day one, without a structural rework later.
  4. Data integrity across the migration. Moving cardholder data, program configurations, and transaction history from the legacy version to CardSuite Pro required precision. Parity errors in a card management context are not recoverable in real time.

FIS needed a delivery team that understood both sides of the integration, the CardSuite Pro environment and the Q2 platform, and could execute across five institutions simultaneously, without slowing the Phase 2 roadmap.

THE TRANSFORMATION

Custom integration across five institutions; built for scale, built for what comes next

The Tailwind team took ownership of the full integration scope: custom development, Q2 platform integration, data migration, and Phase 2 preparation, across all five financial institutions, in parallel.

Institution-by-institution custom development. The team built tailored integrations for each of the five FIs, mapping CardSuite Pro’s capabilities to the specific Q2 configurations and cardholder environments of each institution. No two integrations were identical; each was engineered to the FI’s profile.

Full-featured card management, live from day one. Tailwind delivered an integrated credit and debit card management capability designed to drive cardholder engagement, restoring and expanding the interchange and interest income functionality that makes card programs valuable to FIs.

Data integrity through the migration. Tailwind managed the transition from the legacy card management version to CardSuite Pro with data parity as a non-negotiable. Cardholder records, program configurations, and transaction continuity were maintained throughout the cutover.

Phase 2 architecture built in. Rather than treating Phase 2 as a future problem, the team designed the integration architecture to absorb the planned late-2025 functionality expansion without requiring structural rework. The platform is extensible by design.

The result: five financial institutions fully migrated, no cardholder service disruptions, and a platform positioned to scale. FIS delivered on its commitment to partner institutions and entered the Phase 2 cycle with a stable, production-ready foundation.

THE IMPACT

Five institutions migrated. Revenue programs protected. Platform ready for what’s next.

Across five financial institutions, FIS delivered a modern card management experience to cardholders, protecting interchange and interest income throughout the migration, and setting the foundation for a Phase 2 feature expansion. The integration architecture UST built means FIS can move into the next phase without rebuilding what already works.