UK bank NatWest is partnering with Capco, the management and technology consultancy, as part of efforts to ensure a smooth transition for its systems and clients as the financial industry moves to adopt ISO 20022 for payments and reporting.
Through its collaboration with Capco, NatWest is transitioning to Bankline Direct Digital, the strategic ISO 20022-compliant cloud-based architecture behind Bankline Direct.
Bankline Direct is a cash management solution for financial institutions that fully integrates with Treasury Management Systems and enterprise resource planning platforms to automate payment processing and data reconciliation and provide connectivity to UK and European payment schemes.
The transition to Bankline Direct Digital accelerates and streamlines connectivity, aiming to ensure long-term regulatory compliance and alignment with global standards, boosts resilience and security, and offers scalability while supporting enhanced decision-making and business intelligence.
“We are committed to supporting our clients to build a better tomorrow today,” explained Jonathan Hall, head of digital, commercial and institutions at NatWest. “Given 24/7 e-commerce, the continued rise in mobile and online payments and consumers’ desire for seamless multichannel experiences, treasuries need to automate and optimise back-office processes or risk falling behind.
“The ongoing evolution of the digital landscape is changing the way our clients want to bank with us and Bankline Direct Digital meets this demand for a more connected, intuitive customer experience and enhanced technology and compliance capabilities.”
Enhancing customer experiences
NatWest explained that its partnership with Capco has already helped the bank improve customer experiences, comply with UK and European regulatory payment standards, and build a competitive advantage through the continuous deployment of modern technology at scale – enabling more of our customers to benefit from efficiencies in their financial payments and reporting processes.
Jennifer Scott, managing director, head of digital technology, commercial and institutions at NatWest, said: “We’ve invested hugely in our digital banking suite, transforming services to be more modular and flexible by design, with the ambition to be the bank of choice for UK businesses and the simplest bank for corporates and other financial institutions. To support this, we’ve launched three core services to enable payment scaling, to adapt to and grow with our customers, and improve the reliability of the channel by operating with minimal downtime. These include an intelligent router, a payments orchestration layer, and a data sync layer.”
Bankline Direct already supports over 500 corporate and institutional clients, offering payment services to four million retail and corporate customers, and Capco is continuing to support NatWest in transitioning those customers to the new architecture.
Richard Lewis, partner and head of client service excellence at Capco, said: “With Bankline Direct Digital, we have helped the bank transition from a complex and capacity-constrained legacy architecture to a scalable launch pad for near real-time connectivity that can accommodate customers’ ever-changing payment, data and regulatory needs.”
