ATOM BANK
Transforming banking by building on the cloud
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
DIGITAL REPORT 2020
Transforming banking by building on the cloud 02
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www.a t o mba n k. co. u k
ATOM BANK
Rana Bhattacharya, CTO, Atom bank, guides us through the benefits of being a challenger, the response to COVID-19 and the company’s upcoming launch of its new banking platform
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aunched in 2016, Atom bank was the first UK bank built exclusively for mobile, with the intention of never hav-
ing any physical branches. Its approach has won it significant plaudits, including a position in 04
Tech Nation’s Future Fifty, alongside being the number one rated UK bank on consumer review site Trustpilot. The company’s Chief Technology Officer, Rana Bhattacharya, is clear that part of the reason for its success is its smaller team and challenger culture. “We get a lot done with not a lot of people,” he says. “There’s a level of bureaucracy that’s removed, meaning you can make decisions quickly. And by virtue of that, small teams can accomplish brilliant outcomes and create changes and deploy them to production on the same day. As a digital native you have to embrace change. Whereas in some of the traditional banks, with the governance models and the people that have been there for a long time, it’s much harder for change to happen.”
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Rana Bhattacharya, CTO, Atom bank www.a t o mba n k. co. u k
ATOM BANK
“ Everyone just got on with it and made it work, and you can only do that if you already have the capability and the culture to make those things happen” — Rana Bhattacharya, CTO, Atom bank 06
Atom launched with marketleading Fixed Saver accounts and secured business lending for SMEs. It followed with mortgages in December 2016 and since then has taken £1.8bn in deposits and lent over £2.4bn to small businesses and homeowners. “We exist to create better outcomes for our customers,” says Bhattacharya. “We’re leveraging technologies to automate more and provide a first-class service to them. And by not having the baggage that some of the more traditional
Welcome to Atom bank CLICK TO WATCH
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07 banks have, we can create material
and put Atom and our customers
savings to pass on to our customers.”
in control. For a bank that’s building
The bank is undergoing a techno-
itself for long-term sustainability
logical transformation, launching a
and delivering true customer value,
brand new banking platform more
investment in the right technology
in step with how the market has
is key.”
developed. “Cloud hosting of banking
“We’re heavily using DevOps, so
software wasn’t an option when Atom
IT4IT,” he says. “Historically if you
was authorised,” says Bhattacharya.
imagine an on-premise environment,
“As a business committed to taking
especially with a third party model, it
advantage of the very best systems to
can take up to 42 weeks, if you’re lucky,
run our bank, and with investors who
to commission a new instance. Now, on
are right behind our commitment to
the cloud using DevOps, we can stand
technology, we are adopting systems
up an instance of the bank on the cloud
that are built specifically for the cloud
in under a week. That gives you a lot www.a t o mba n k. co. u k
“Working with Thought Machine has been revolutionary. The Vault platform is quick and agile. Its unique features enable us to bring new experiences to banking with velocity, all the while keeping quality high and costs low.� Rana Bhattacharya, CTO Atom bank
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Powering Atom bank to reinvent banking
The revolutionary power of the cloud The world’s largest technology brands - Netflix, Spotify, Google - all operate exclusively on the cloud. Yet it’s a universal truth that the banking industry has been held back by legacy technology stifling innovation, and at huge costs. While banks accept that a move towards modern, cloud native systems is necessary, fullscale banking transformation can be daunting. Meanwhile, the next wave of challenger banks are able to start afresh and build their bank in the cloud.
The benefits of a Vault engine At Thought Machine, we created a product to power any bank. Our product is Vault, a cloud native, core banking engine. Vault was built by former senior Google engineers, and can be configured to run any type of bank and launch any type of product. Vault’s unique features enable banks to transmit their vision into the hands of the customers, while taking full advantage of the cloud. Innovation Vault’s hyper-configurable platform enables banks to reinvent customer experience as new features and interfaces can be designed and rolled out quickly and with more agility. Banks powered by Vault are ‘always up’, even during product launches.
Security Vault’s technology is designed to provide security through all levels of the infrastructure. If a server in the cloud malfunctions, another server is spun up to absorb the functions, ensuring that the bank doesn’t have to go offline. Meanwhile, data is encrypted creating superior analytics as banks can capture, store and view data to identify unusual behaviour. Automation Vault operates a highly automated DevOps environment – nearly everything traditionally done with manual intervention in a traditional data centre can be performed automatically. This means banks can regain control of their workflows, while keeping costs low.
Partnering with Atom bank Atom bank chose Vault to power its bank as they wanted a platform that would enable them to keep innovating at pace, just as they did when they brought biometrics to UK banking. Since partnering with Thought Machine last year, Atom bank has been leveraging Vault’s cuttingedge technology to streamline their workflows and bring new products to market with speed. Our teams will be working together to launch products designed with unique features to bring unseen experiences to the banking industry.
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ATOM BANK
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of capability by virtue of not being
offer us a managed service that we’ll
hamstrung by the number of environ-
be plugging into, but everything that
ments. The cost model is different
we manage and change ourselves
because effectively you can spin
will be hosted on the cloud. We’re
up an environment and once you’ve
effectively building a state-of-the-art
used it, you can kill it (treating envi-
bank hosted on Google Cloud.”
ronments as cattle, versus pets).” The Atom banking machine is what
The company is also leveraging emerging technologies for such
Bhattacharya calls the new cloud-
things as enterprise decision-mak-
based infrastructure and associated
ing, including pricing and financial
software components. “The majority
forecasting. “We’ve built an in-house
of the estate is being moved onto
machine learning model to inject
Google Cloud Platform. We’ll still
some insights into that. From an
have a number of third parties who
operations perspective, we use
machine learning to support activi-
traffic by default alongside not trust-
ties like credit risk scoring, instant
ing the device. We always look to
pricing quotes for business banking,
leverage a zero-trust model, which is
and anti money-laundering identifi-
important as a bank,” Bhattacharya
cation and prevention.”
reiterates. “We have a continuous
For a bank, security is paramount,
security testing cycle using third
and Atom’s cybersecurity protection is
parties to give us more information
comprehensive. It utilises encryption,
about security threats from their
access control, vulnerability manage-
perspectives. Our security is strict,
ment, firewalling, DDoS scrubbing
it’s very tight and we clearly classify
amongst other security controls to
data as part of managing it, as well
protect its customers’ data.
as from a security perspective.”
“We look at the full stack in terms of protection the app, has encrypted
The technology Atom uses is in service of providing a better
E X E C U T I V E P R O FILE :
Rana Bhattacharya Title: Chief Technology Officer Company: Atom bank Industry: Financial Services Location: Durham Recognised by Computing as one of the top 250 IT Leaders in 2019, and a member of the Executive Committee at Atom since April 2017, responsible for IT, Change and Programme Management. Rana has experience in large-scale systems development and delivery success for major players in the finance sector. Before joining Atom, Rana held roles such as Chief Architect at Nationwide Building Society and Senior Manager for Architecture and Delivery at Accenture. www.a t o mba n k. co. u k
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How does Atom bank make digital identity journeys fast, safe, and seamless? Since 2014, Daon has partnered with Atom in pioneering biometric banking in the UK, leading the way as the first app-only bank and the first to use face and voice biometrics for account login. With best-in-class biometrics and biometric liveness through Daon’s IdentityX® platform at its core, Atom delivers a fast, safe, and seamless experience to all users, everywhere, independent of their personal device’s features or limitations. From account creation to authentication, customers are in control of their own digital identity journeys with the least friction and the most security. It’s no wonder Atom is the UK’s most trusted bank according to Trustpilot.
1 billion+ 100 million+ 160+ 150+ 100+ 20+
identities we’ve been chosen to secure authentications performed each day groundbreaking biometric technology patents major financial institutions using our technology biometric algorithms we’ve road tested from 75+ vendors years as the most trusted name in biometric identity assurance
The World’s Most Trusted Identity Journeys • www.daon.com
“ I’m proud of Atom and proud of my team to have been able to get us to where we are now” — Rana Bhattacharya, CTO, Atom bank
away from using Unity for our mobile apps, which is more of a gaming platform, rebuilding it on native technology, running faster with a new UX. And that’s been quite well received. There’s still some improvements to make, but on iOS, we now have an app store rating of 4.6.” Google is a significant partner for Atom, with their relationship serving as a model for how Bhattacharya
customer experience, both directly
approaches suppliers and partners.
and indirectly. “We’re transform-
“Google not only provides us with
ing, not just from a technology
infrastructure but elements of data
perspective, but also by taking on
and other capabili-
more internal accountability,” says
ties. For us, it was
Bhattacharya. “We’re insourcing
quite an impor-
more, meaning that Atom can make
tant decision to
key changes across its IT estate
choose a cloud
without external resource require-
vendor.
ment enabling a greater pace of change. And this is the power behind Atom’s banking machine which fuses technology, people as well as data to provide benefits to our customers.” Other customer-centric achievements include the resolution of 97% of support tickets within SLA, and the improvement of its apps. “In December of last year, we moved www.cwww.a o mpa ny t o mba we bsit n k.e. co. com uk
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ATOM BANK
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As we moved to the cloud, we wanted a partner, not a supplier, someone to engage with us as an entity, work with and help us. We felt having a partner - a real partner - was 50% of the transformation, someone on your side to help you succeed. And that’s what we found in Google.” Atom has found other partners to boost capability in other areas, as Bhattacharya explains: “Thought Machine has a pivotal role to play within our transformation. We’re looking to run Thought Machine as a cloud native, smart contractbased core banking platform on Google. What that will allow us to do is basically define any type of product we could imagine - and do this in house. As part of our launch in 2016, we partnered with DAON and pioneered the use of biometrics in the UK banking industry and led the way with face and voice biometrics as core credentials to log-in to your bank. As a team we continue to make improvements because we’re committed to exceptional customer experiences.” www.a t o mba n k. co. u k
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ATOM BANK
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is putting a strain on business worldwide, uprooting long-established ways of doing business. Bhattacharya emphasises the need for understanding during these difficult times, saying: “You have to put more emphasis on bilateral and team communications, as well as wellness. In terms of my team and colleagues, the current pandemic has brought a different perspective on life and the need to ensure, yes 16
you get the work done, but also that people are well and healthy both physically and mentally.”
“ By not having the baggage that some of the more traditional banks have, we can create some material savings to pass on to our customers” — Rana Bhattacharya, CTO, Atom bank
Bhattacharya credits the company’s resilience to its employees. “I think it’s a testament to the folks in our team. We implemented home working very rapidly - before the official lockdown came into place. In terms of our security and the networks team, within a two to three week period, they got all of our employees working from home successfully, including the contact centre. I don’t think we would be able to support and service our
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customers the way we have been
with a small number of people and
able to, if we hadn’t had that inherent
a comparatively small budget is sig-
capability in the bank. Everyone just
nificant. I’m proud of Atom and proud
got on with it and made it work, and
of my team to have been able to get
you can only do that if you already
us to where we are now, closing off a
have the capability and the culture to
few items to get us ready to go live.”
make those things happen.” As Atom comes close to going live with its Banking Machine, Bhattacharya is clear that it has been down to the dedication of his team in challenging and uncertain circumstances. “What we’ve done www.a t o mba n k. co. u k
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