Bringing Banking into the 21st Century with ClearBank
ClearBank are the first clearing bank in the UK for 250 years. Their mission is clear – to reinvigorate the UK banking market and give customers a new choice when it comes to banking.
When looking at the challenges faced by the incumbent banks, Nick Ogden, Executive Chairman at ClearBank was clear what needed to change. “The challenge that they faced was legacy systems that ran on batch processing. When we designed and built ClearBank, we wanted to get away from that. So, if I wanted to make a payment to a business or a relative and I wanted it to happen instantly…that’s what happens with ClearBank, that’s what makes us different” he explains. Using Microsoft’s Azure platform and partnering with Elastacloud has enabled ClearBank to achieve this.
Of course, one of the most important aspects in finance is security. ClearBank wanted to be sure that customer details would be secure, hence why Azure was a natural fit as Nick discusses. “Security is vitally important for us, we need to manage ourselves against cyber-attacks and to do that we have help from the Microsoft Redmond Cyber Security centre who sit at the perimeter of Azure.”
The incumbent banks are also tied down with processes that can take months to complete. Working with Azure, ClearBank have been able to completely change processes and can offer services at unprecedented speeds as Nick explains: “We’ve created an API, which allows instant access. It’s a simple integration that can be delivered in up to 8 weeks, to allow them to create a brand-new service for their customers in record time.”
To make all this possible, ClearBank had to make sure they were working with a partner they could trust. Microsoft & Elastacloud were truly able to complete the vision that ClearBank had.
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