How to build an RFP for pricing and billing in transactional banking
A practical guide for banks evaluating pricing, billing and revenue management systems. What to require, what to test and how to separate purpose-built solutions from generic platforms.
Pricing and billing is not standard enterprise software
Most enterprise software RFPs are built around generic criteria: integration, scalability, vendor stability. For pricing and billing in transactional banking, those criteria are necessary but not sufficient.
Transactional banking pricing involves complex, multi-dimensional fee structures across hundreds of service types, tens of thousands of corporate clients and multiple currencies and regulatory jurisdictions. A vendor that handles SaaS billing or retail banking fees is not equipped to handle this.
The RFP process must be designed to surface that difference. This guide shows you how.
Define scope before you write a single requirement
The most common mistake in pricing and billing RFPs is writing requirements before the bank has agreed internally on what it is actually buying. Before issuing an RFP, the procurement team and business owner must align on four questions.
Are you replacing the full pricing and billing stack, or starting with a specific product or client segment? Do you need the system to take over billing calculations from day one, or will you run in parallel? Which regulatory obligations must the system support at go-live — PSR, VIDA, or domestic mandates? And what is the non-negotiable timeline, given that sales cycles for purpose-built systems in this category typically run 18 to 36 months from first contact to go-live?
Answers to these questions determine whether you need a full revenue management platform, a modular replacement for one component, or a configuration layer on top of an existing core system.
What every RFP in this category must cover
Pricing model flexibility
The system must support flat fees, tiered pricing, volume bands, relationship-based pricing, bundled services and hybrid models simultaneously. Ask vendors to demonstrate this with a live scenario from cash management.
Billing cycle control
Banks must control billing frequency, cut-off dates and invoice formats per client, product and jurisdiction. The RFP must ask whether this is configurable without code changes and who holds configuration rights.
Regulatory compliance built in
For European banks, PSR fee disclosure and VIDA e-invoicing are non-negotiable. Require vendors to confirm native support, not third-party add-ons. Ask for evidence of live compliance in a production environment.
Revenue leakage detection
Many banks discover, only after an implementation, that their legacy system was not billing correctly. Ask vendors how the system identifies and reports on unbilled or underbilled transactions. This is a critical differentiator.
Core banking integration
The system must integrate with the bank's core banking platform, transaction processing systems and general ledger. Require vendors to list certified integrations and ask for a reference with the same core banking stack.
Business user configuration
The product team must be able to launch new fee structures, adjust pricing models and respond to client requests without raising IT tickets. Ask vendors to demonstrate a complete product change end-to-end with a business user, not a consultant.
How to separate purpose-built from generic
The vendors in this market fall into two categories. Purpose-built platforms are designed from the ground up for transactional banking pricing and billing. Generic billing platforms — typically adapted from insurance, telecoms or retail banking — offer broad functionality but require heavy customisation to handle the specific requirements of corporate and institutional clients.
The RFP should include a mandatory scripted demo scenario based on a real-world use case from your bank's cash management product portfolio. Ask every vendor to complete the same scenario. Observe whether they demonstrate it natively or with consultant-built workarounds.
Ask also for at least two reference banks in a comparable segment — mid-size to large, European, with a corporate or institutional client base — and require a reference call, not a written case study.
A suggested weighting for your evaluation
Procurement teams often apply a generic software scoring model to this category, which systematically disadvantages purpose-built vendors in favour of large, established names with broad feature lists. A more useful framework weights functional fit and domain expertise heavily.
A practical starting point: functional fit and demonstrated capability 40%, domain expertise and reference quality 25%, implementation approach and time-to-value 20%, total cost of ownership over five years 15%. Vendor size and brand recognition should carry zero independent weight.
This weighting reflects the reality that a system that is misconfigured for transactional banking creates ongoing operational risk that no amount of vendor brand can offset.
What banks get wrong in this process
Copying requirements from a generic RFP template
Requirements written for ERP, CRM or core banking systems do not map to pricing and billing. Generic templates miss the specifics of multi-tier pricing, relationship-based billing and cash management fee structures entirely.
Letting IT write the functional requirements
Technical architecture and integration are IT's domain. Pricing model logic, billing flexibility and revenue management capability must be defined by the business. If IT writes the full RFP, the business gets a system that integrates cleanly but cannot support the product strategy.
Evaluating on demo polish rather than functional depth
Large vendors invest heavily in demo environments. Require all vendors to demonstrate the same scripted scenario on a live or near-live system, without preparation specific to your use case. This reveals capability that polished demos conceal.
Underestimating total cost of ownership
The licence cost of a large vendor platform is rarely the largest line item over five years. Implementation services, customisation, annual maintenance and the internal resources required to manage configuration typically dwarf the initial licence. Require a full five-year TCO breakdown from every vendor.
Built for exactly what this RFP is asking for
itea P2B is a purpose-built pricing and billing platform for transactional banking. It is designed to meet every requirement category in this guide natively, without customisation or third-party add-ons.
The platform covers end-to-end revenue management for cash management, from fee configuration and relationship pricing through to regulatory-compliant invoice generation and revenue reporting. It is trusted by European banks managing complex corporate and institutional client portfolios. For a full overview of the platform's capabilities, see our pricing and billing for banks page.
If you are building an RFP or shortlist in this category, itea P2B is worth evaluating on its functional merits — alongside any other vendor on your list.
Ready to put itea P2B on your shortlist?
Talk to a transactional banking specialist. We can walk you through how itea P2B performs against the requirements in this guide, with a live demonstration on a real cash management scenario.