Finastra has spent the past year and a half shedding business lines that don’t fit its narrowing focus on payments and lending. 

“The more products you have, the less focused you are,” Chief Executive Chris Walters, told FinAi News.  

He said the divestiture process began with outreach to thousands of Finastra customers to identify the strongest company offerings.

Since Walters became CEO in January 2025, the digital banking provider has announced, and in some cases completed, four major divestitures: 

• Universal Banking (UB), Finastra’s global core banking portfolio: Sold to private capital asset manager Pollen Street Capital. The deal was announced in June  and financial terms were not disclosed. 

• U.S. Mid-Market banking business: Acquired by CORA Group, operating company. The deal was announced in June.  

• Middle East and Asia core banking unit: In September 2025 Finastra sold core banking units in specific markets that exceeded $1 billion. 

• Treasury and Capital Markets (TCM): Sold to Apax Funds for approximately $2 billion. The deal was announced in May 2025.

Core banking sales and implementation cycles are the longest in the industry, Walters said, making the segment a lower priority for incremental investment relative to payments and lending. 

“We ended up prioritizing about 60% of the revenue of the business [which comes from lending and payments] to keep and be committed to the long term,” he said. 

Beyond the four divestitures, Walters said most of Finastra’s non-lending, non-payments products have already been sold. 

“There may be some smaller things that could transpire,” Walters said of any future sales. “But ultimately we feel really good about where we are with the focus on lending and payments.” 

Proceeds from the sales “are quite significant,” he said, and will be used toward organic growth investment, debt paydown and potential M&A. 

Growth despite the shrinking portfolio 

Walters said Finastra’s lending and payments business has grown bookings more than 20% for 2026, noting “on every meaningful financial dimension, our company is performing at record levels.”

On the acquisition side, Walters said Finastra is looking to add to its narrowed portfolio rather than simply optimize it, with any targets confined “tightly” to lending and payments, he said.

He described valuations as inconsistent across the market: Rich for AI startups, more attractive for slower-growing, at-scale proven businesses. 

AI at Finastra 

Walters said Finastra’s AI push started in engineering, where metrics such as code generation point to “material efficiency gains.” He framed the payoff as faster customer delivery, not headcount cuts: “If our team can do 10% more, that’s great.”  

Other internal uses include AI-assisted customer support and an HR chatbot.

On the product side, Finastra launched Operator Assist for investigating and repairing failed payments, with a human kept in the loop. 

Finastra runs on Microsoft Copilot, which gives it access to multiple LLMs. Walters described the company’s approach as model-agnostic, picking products that best fit a given use case.  

Register here for the FinAi Lending Summit, set for Oct. 7-8 in Las Vegas. This inaugural event will include speakers from Fifth Third and Capital One as well as a fireside chat with Piermont Bank founder and Chief Executive Wendy Cai-Lee.