Wildfire Credit Union has sued the Brookfield, Wis.-basedfinancial tech company Fiserv. At issue are claims, promises andperformance of Fiserv's flagship DNA core system.

In its filing, the $677 million Saginaw, Mich.-based creditunion said it had initially expressed interest in Fiserv'sill-fated Acumen core, which had been billed as state of the art but waskilled off when it bought Open Solutions Inc. and its DNAcore to fill that higher-end market niche.

On Sept. 10, 2013, Fiserv issueda press release touting its signing of Wildfire to DNA, in acompetitive takeaway from Symitar.

Just over a year later, on Nov. 13, 2014, in the EasternDistrict of Michigan, Wildfire expressed its profounddissatisfaction with Fiserv in a lengthy court filing.

The credit union has alleged fraud, and it wants every cent itpaid refunded, according to court documents. The filing representsa kind of dated diary of a relationship that started out with highexpectations and ended in anger.

In the filing, Wildfire said it had clearly stated to Fiservbefore entering into a contract that it wanted the Acumen screens,not DNA's.

“The Acumen overlay was important to Wildfire because the AcumenUser Interface (UI) was very clean and elegant looking, whilefrom the beginning the DNA UI looked convoluted and confusing,”Wildfire said. “Wildfire would not have been interested in DNA ifthe UI was not going to change, but the promise by Fiserv that theAcumen screens would replace the DNA screens alleviated thatconcern.”

Wildfire also identified another stumbling block.

“The Fiserv representatives never discussed or indicated that aconversion from Wildfire's current core system provided by Symitar to the DNA platform would be especially difficult orunusually challenging due to their lack of experience withconverting from the Symitar system to the DNA system,” the creditunion said.

A source not involved in the litigation confirmed to CUTimes that there had been very few takeaways from Symitar byOSI/DNA.

In a June 2013 meeting, senior Wildfire executives met with aplatoon of Fiserv brass including CEO Jeff Yabuki.

In that meeting, claimed Wildfire, “[Wildfire Vice President, ITMark] Schuiling indicated that, with all of the complexities of acore system, it is nearly impossible to vet every aspect of thesystem, so the decision to move forward in changing that system islargely based on trust, and asked Yabuki directly why shouldWildfire trust him? Yabuki agreed that there was a lot of trustinvolved and made it clear that Fiserv was committed to DNA as itsplatform of the future, and that Fiserv had and would be committingsignificant resources to DNA and therefore Wildfire could trust himthat this will be successful.”

At various meetings with Fiserv, Wildfire alleged in its filing,company representatives made “false representations.” Included was“DNA can do everything Wildfire wanted it to do, because it is openand flexible and can write applications, and that Fiserv would hita 'home run' with this conversion.”

According to Wildfire, the project manager assigned by Fiserv tooversee the core conversion “had no working knowledge of DNA or anyof the other products and services which Wildfire hadpurchased.”

The complaint continued: “On Feb. 3, 2014, [Wildfire CEOTimothy] Benecke sent email correspondence to [Fiserv], indicatingproblems that Wildfire was already experiencing with communicationsand training, such as the fact that the Fiserv trainers did noteven know what products and services Wildfire had purchased and onwhich its employees needed training.”

On April 15, 2014, at a dinner meeting, according to Wildfire, asenior DNA executive informed them that, “Fiserv was not going tobe redoing all of the screens of DNA, contrary to [Fiserv's]representations to Wildfire before it signed the [contract].”

In May 2014, said Wildfire, “it became clear to Wildfirerepresentatives that, contrary to Fiserv's representations, DNA wasnot as efficient as Symitar. Wildfire representatives asked Fiservrepresentatives if there was something they were missing to correctthat fact, but received no solution.”

“On Aug. 27, 2014,” claimed the credit union, “Wildfirerepresentatives (there were at least 20 people in attendance)learned from Fiserv that a referral feature which it had beenpromised six months earlier and which was represented to be 'betterthan Symitar,' and which was in Fiserv's written Best Practicesreport as available, was in fact not available.”

Then, the divorce happened.

“On Sept. 11, 2014, Benecke spoke with [Byron C. Vielehr FiservGroup President, Depository Institution Services] and advised himthat it was apparent that, contrary to the dates in the Scheduleswhich were part of the Master Agreement, the conversion from thecurrent Symitar platform to that of DNA was not going to happentimely or successfully, and that accordingly Wildfire had toterminate the contract.”

Wildfire, in turn, demanded that Fiserv refund “$1,360,568.18 ithad already paid to Fiserv for products and services which it hadnot received.”

Fiserv refused. The suit resulted and, in its filing, Wildfiresaid it is seeking a refund of all monies paid.

The credit union said it also seeking compensation for allegeddamages. According to the filing, “Wildfire respectfully requeststhat this Court enter judgment in Wildfire's favor and againstFiserv in an amount to be determined by a jury that compensatesWildfire for Fiserv's injuries to Wildfire, plus costs, interestand attorneys' fees.”

As to Wildfire's chances in court, Brad Smith, CEO of theAustin, Texas-based financial technology consulting firm AboundResources, indicated he had no specific knowledge of the Wildfirecomplaint.

However, he said, “Most vendors have contractual language thatabsolve themselves of any promises made during the sales process.Unless the promises were written down and ideally added as anaddendum to the contract, it's very difficult to prove breach.”

A spokesperson for Fiserv emailed: “We do not comment on pendinglitigation.”

Wildfire had not responded to a request for comment.