Comparison · 2026 edition
SDK.finance vs Thought Machine: core banking compared 2026.
SDK.finance and Thought Machine side by side in the Core Banking and Ledgers Index 2026: scores, evidence, published facts and awards.
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SDK.finance and Thought Machine side by side in the Core Banking and Ledgers Index 2026: scores, evidence, published facts and awards.
In the Core Banking and Ledgers Index, Thought Machine scores higher overall: 3.5 out of 5 (71 out of 100) against 3.0 (60), ranking 1 and 2 of 12. SDK.finance scores higher for fintechs building their own products; Thought Machine scores higher for banks and building societies and e-money and payment firms.
Overall and segment scores out of 100, and the score out of 5.
| Score | SDK.finance | Thought Machine |
|---|---|---|
| Score out of 5 | 3.0 | 3.5 |
| Score out of 100 | 60 | 71 |
| Overall rank | 2 of 12 | 1 of 12 |
| For banks and building societies (out of 100) | 52, rank 9 | 83, rank 1 |
| For E-money and payment firms (out of 100) | 60, rank 3 | 68, rank 1 |
| For fintechs building their own products (out of 100) | 68, rank 1 | 61, rank 2 |
| Type | Core banking and wallet platform | Cloud-native core banking platform |
Each score with the evidence behind it.
| Criterion | SDK.finance | Thought Machine |
|---|---|---|
| Product coverage | 3/5 Accounts, cards and payments published; lending and multi-currency not confirmed. | 5/5 Deposits, lending, cards, payments and multi-currency all published. |
| Published pricing | 5/5 Monthly and per-transaction SaaS price published. | 0/5 Not published. |
| Deployment choice | 4/5 SaaS and on-premise published; no named cloud. | 5/5 Four named public clouds, on-premise, hybrid and a managed SaaS published. |
| Integration | 4/5 API reference and sandbox; no launch time. | 3/5 Public sandbox and self-service deployment; no specific time to launch. |
| Security and regulated clients | 1/5 Case-study clients named; no certifications published. | 5/5 ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2 stated, with named regulated banks. |
| Proven scale | 0/5 Not published for the platform. | 3/5 One figure published: 20 major financial institutions. |
Each criterion is scored 0 to 5 against the best published offer in the Core Banking and Ledgers Index. 0 means not offered or not published. How it is scored
What each provider publishes on its own pages, read on 26 October 2026.
| Fact | SDK.finance | Thought Machine |
|---|---|---|
| Product coverage | Solutions for digital wallets, core banking, money transfer and remittance, card issuing and merchant payment processing; "Individual & business accounts". | Vault Core: current and transaction accounts, savings and term deposits, loans and mortgages, credit cards and BNPL (buy now, pay later), wallets and multi-currency. Vault Payments: payment orchestration, account-to-account payments, card issuing and processing. |
| Pricing | SaaS: "First 3 months: flat fee €10,000", then "Monthly payment = €5,500 + €0.05 per transaction". Source code licence: annual or lifetime, price on request. | Not published on the pages read. |
| Deployment | SaaS, or source code licence "Hosted on your servers (on-premises, dedicated datacenter)". | Runs on Google Cloud, AWS, Azure and IBM Cloud, on-premise, hybrid through Red Hat OpenShift, and as a managed SaaS on AWS. |
| Integration | API reference, documentation and release notes; "Back-office Real-time Sandbox" demo. | Public shared sandbox through the Vault Portal for partners; self-service deployment or client services; "Launch in weeks, not years" with no specific time stated. |
| Security and clients | "TechFin UAB ... is not a bank, financial or payment institution." Case studies name Geidea, MPAY, TheOneGate, Paywell and Nebeus. No certifications found on the pages read. | States it is "ISO 27001 certified" and holds "SOC 2 Type 2 accreditation". Logos include Lloyds, Standard Chartered, SEB, Intesa Sanpaolo, Bancolombia, Arvest, Atom and Lunar. |
| Scale | Not listed in this index | "We support 20 of the world's premier financial institutions". |
| Date read | 26 October 2026 | 26 October 2026 |
Not published or not stated by SDK.finance: product coverage, deployment choice, security and regulated clients and proven scale.
Not published or not stated by Thought Machine: pricing and integration.
Facts read on 26 October 2026 from: sdk.finance/pricing, sdk.finance/pricing-saas; and thoughtmachine.net, thoughtmachine.net/press-releases/…, thoughtmachine.net/delivery, thoughtmachine.net/blog/….
Awards follow from the published scores and cannot be bought.
From each provider's strongest criteria and published terms.
E-money firms and fintechs wanting a published price.
Large banks replacing a legacy core on the cloud of their choice.
Tell us what you need and where you operate.