MFS’ bastion of disruption has been built on two key principles of “Moving currency electronic” and “multi-channel”. MFS, in essence, is a “middleman” that doesn’t own anything – it simply facilitates convenient access to fundamental monetary services and range of Value added services through its multi-channel APIs with core peripheral systems viz. CBS, Remittance hub, merchant systems, IN platform and so on.

The particular core strength of multi-channel however, is also MFS’ Achilles heel. Each channel has its own backend admin interface to the business owner. Each of these admin panels are silo-centric and there is no consistency of information across them. Thus, the so called business intelligence of a multi-channel system is also confined to the individual channel.

As has happened to many middleware IT systems earlier, multi-channel is about to get cut out by two bootstrapped challengers backed by the inherent demand of the telecom, enterprise and financial industry alike – called as Omnichannel and Unified commerce, these might be MFS’ best shot to improvise on core abilities and to get the house in order.