Blog Post
Build vs. Buy: Should You Develop Custom Reconciliation Scripts or Buy a Platform?
Every Fintech CTO faces this crossroads. You have a talented engineering team. They know Python, they know SQL. When the Finance team complains about manual reconciliation, the instinct is to say: "We can build a script for that in a week." It starts as a simple cron job. Three years later, it is a monolithic spaghetti code of 50,000 lines that only one developer understands, and that developer just quit. In 2026, the "Build vs. Buy" equation has shifted heavily towards Buying. Here is why.
The Illusion of "Free" Development
Building seems cheaper because you are paying the developers' salaries anyway. But this ignores Opportunity Cost. Every hour an engineer spends maintaining a file parser for a bank statement is an hour they are not building your core product features.
Furthermore, reconciliation is not a "fire and forget" problem. It is dynamic.
- API Drift: Payment gateways change their API response formats without warning. Your script breaks.
- Format Shifts: The bank migrates from MT940 to ISO 20022. Your parser needs a complete rewrite.
- Scale: A Python script that handles 10,000 rows in memory crashes when you hit 1 million rows. You now need to architect a distributed system.
The Case for Buying (SaaS)
Specialized platforms like Reconwizz have already solved these edge cases. You are not just buying software; you are buying the R&D of a team dedicated solely to solving data matching problems.
1. Speed to Market
Building a robust reconciliation engine with a UI for the finance team takes 6-12 months. Implementing a SaaS solution takes 4-8 weeks. In the fast-moving fintech world, that 10-month gap is an eternity.
2. Audit & Compliance
Auditors hate custom scripts. "Who wrote this? Where is the change log? Can you prove no one tampered with the database?" SaaS platforms come with SOC2 compliance, audit trails, and role-based access control out of the box. This makes passing your annual audit significantly cheaper and less painful.
3. User Empowerment
Custom scripts usually require a developer to run or fix them. This creates a bottleneck. SaaS platforms offer "No-Code" rule builders. The Finance Operations manager can change a matching rule from "Exact Match" to "Fuzzy Match" without opening a Jira ticket for Engineering.
TCO Comparison Table
| Cost Factor | Build (Internal) | Buy (SaaS Platform) |
|---|---|---|
| Initial Cost | High (Dev Salaries) | Low (Setup Fee) |
| Maintenance | High (Ongoing bug fixes) | Included in Subscription |
| Upgrades | Expensive Projects | Automatic / Seamless |
| UI/UX | Usually Poor (CLI/Basic Admin) | Professional / User-Friendly |
Conclusion: Focus on Your Core
Unless you are selling reconciliation software, building it is a distraction. Your competitive advantage comes from your unique lending algorithm, your customer experience, or your market reach—not from how well you parse a CSV file. Smart CTOs in 2026 are buying utility infrastructure so their teams can build innovation.