While Generic Tech Companies Are On An Aggressive Acquisition Hunt, Bank Tech Companies Have Pulled Back

Core banking vendors no longer need to acquire other companies at their former rate.

What had been a tour de force for bank tech companies all along, is now a drip from a leaky faucet. For example, during the life of Fiserv, it has experienced an annual rate of 5.6 acquired companies. In the past two years it had zero. FIS and Jack Henry showed up with three this year. During the life of their companies, FIS has had 2.3 per year and Jack Henry one per year.

Is this one more piece of evidence that the three-year-old financial crisis has spread its disease? I don't believe so. I think it's more like the pond went dry. Fiserv, FIS and Jack Henry have all the goods they need now to serve their customers and stay competitive in the financial services industry. In addition, acquiring like companies for the sake of mass is not appealing to these highly focused companies who know better what to do with their cash than feed their egos.

So what's good for the giant tech companies like IBM, Oracle, EMC, H-P, Microsoft and Dell just doesn't sway the behavior of companies that once rounded up the herd but now are milking the cows.