UK state-owned bank goes cloud-native
State-owned National Savings and Investments bank used contract renewal as an opportunity to keep pace with changes in the market
The UK’s National Savings and Investments (NS&I) bank is replacing its legacy core banking system as part of a wider digital transformation project.
The legacy platform, which has been provided through an outsourcing contract with Atos since 1999, will be replaced with a cloud-native platform from software supplier SBS, formerly Sopra Banking Software.
SBS’s SBP Digital Core platform will be introduced in 2028 as the final part of a wider digital transformation, which includes extending its work with Atos. IBM and Sopra Steria are also involved in the project to transform the bank’s operations.
NS&I, which is 160 years old and has about 24 million customers, outsourced its back-office operations to Siemens IT Solutions and Services, now Atos, in 1999.
Atos successfully won a competitive re-procurement exercise in 2012/13, and the UK state-owned savings bank extended its IT services contract with the French IT services company in 2019, through a £300m, three-year contract.
Until recently, Atos provided NS&I’s core services, which included IT and infrastructure. But according to Matt Smith, chief operating officer at NS&I, “throughout much of that time, SBS has been a key partner to Atos, providing the existing core banking engine and associated technologies”.
Smith said the end of the legacy Atos contract and a statutory requirement to re-tender presented NS&I, which was previously known as the Post Office Savings Bank, with an opportunity “to transform the way it delivers its services to keep pace with market changes and customer expectations”.
Key to the transformation project is a move away from one service provider to multiple suppliers. “Our transformation programme will help to deliver the digital experiences that our customers expect, while still ensuring there is help and support for those who need it,” said Smith. “Replacing our core system is a critical step in this evolution,” he added.
“The business transformation programme will modernise our operating model, enabled by a switch from a single outsourced provider to a multi-provider model. It will ensure we have modern, scalable and flexible systems that can deliver for government, customers and taxpayers.”
NS&I looked at a number of suppliers through 2022-2023 before selecting the SBS platform.
Banks had to adopt cloud strategies quickly in the face of heightened competition from challenger banks, which were often built on cloud-native services. As a result, there has been a boom in contracts with cloud suppliers in the financial services sector. NS&I has used a contract renewal to begin its cloud banking journey.
Cloud and software-as-a-service transformation in the financial industry is not a matter of when, but how,” said SBS CEO Eric Bierry. “NS&I’s transformation programme is evidence that it is possible for banks to execute this transformation – and doing so sets them up to drive otherwise unattainable efficiencies and experiences.”
NS&I has about 260 staff and uses IT professionals from suppliers such as IBM, Sopra Steria and Atos.
