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TOGETHER’S TRANSFORMATION STORY

Published

4 years ago

March 7, 2019

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For over 40 years, Together has been committed to providing no-nonsense lending in even the most complicated of situations.

The company works with homebuyers, investors, landlords, and small businesses, and partners with a network of intermediaries, including brokers, accountants and solicitors, to secure the finance people need to buy a new home or start a new venture.

Antiquated processes

Historically, Together relied on manual processes, which were cumbersome and time-intensive. For a business that is focused on common-sense lending, the human touch in making intelligent business decisions is essential. However, it soon became apparent that the use of technology was an integral part in supporting people in making and implementing those decisions in the most efficient and effective way.

As the company began to experience rapid growth, this became even more essential, and so Together turned to Mastek to embark on a digital transformation journey.

Simon Carter, IT Director at Together, says, “The business had ambitious growth plans, but we recognised they couldn’t be achieved if we continued to work in the same way. We were very limited in our digital engagement with our intermediaries and our customers. To transform the business, we had to transform the technology.”

A journey of transformation

Because Together lends mostly through brokers, its transformation journey initially focused on them. Mastek helped the company replace obscure, complex product interfaces with a unified broker portal that is easier to use, much more systematic and clear about what brokers and customers can expect from Together, and about how the lender’s products work.

“We’ve removed paper-dependent steps out of processes, and automated manual ones. Our own research has shown 95% broker satisfaction with the new portal, and the business has reduced the underwriting turnaround by 30%. Meanwhile the business can instantly respond to regulatory changes. Ultimately, we have been able to grow the business in line with expectations, without changing the heart of the business,” says Simon Carter.

Improvements to the broker portal have also continued. For example, a recent addition of decision-in-principle functionality uses sophisticated underwriting logic to give potential customers immediate pre-approval for a specific loan amount. This gives them more information and confidence when choosing a lender to apply to.

Realising business growth

Together’s programme of smart change has played a big part in its ability to grow the value of its loan book by 150% in just three years, two years ahead of target.

Speed and ease of service have made Together increasingly attractive to brokers and their customers. New channels, such as mortgage clubs, have opened up to the lender. And Together’s many new internal efficiencies have allowed the company to take this growth in stride.

“Importantly, the partnership has provided us with the ability to scale up or down as business requirements change. We almost doubled our head count in the last four years, and trebled the size of the loan book, so this flexibility has been essential in supporting our rapid growth. Market conditions can also change, so it’s important to have the security of knowing the technology can support the business in that scenario too,” comments Simon Carter.

He adds, “the reality is that unless we had transformed, we may not be in business today. We recognised we needed to keep pace with the changing market, but the growth we’ve witnessed since our digital transformation shows we’re more than competing.”

Agile development

In the four years since starting to work with Together on the broker portal, the original 14-strong Mastek team has grown to more than 100, working on more than 125 Agile development projects and IT-enabled business enhancements.

Steve Thomason, Head of Business Systems at Together, explains, “We don’t buy our core IT products off the shelf; we’ve always pursued bespoke development of our systems of differentiation. It’s a strategy that works for us, giving us the control and flexibility to respond to broker and customer needs without ever waiting on a software provider.”

Before bringing Mastek on board, developments were managed in-house with ad-hoc use of contractors; but as the company’s ambitions grew and the pace of change accelerated, there was an unwelcome increase in delivery delays. These are now a thing of the past, with readily scalable Mastek resource and effective Agile development processes in place.

Planning for transformation

Every Together development project starts with an idea — a response to a broker need, for example — that is examined until all of the expected benefits and costs are clearly understood. Ideas that pass muster become projects (large or small) and the priority and delivery of projects is continually assessed and re-assessed. Even as the current crop of projects progresses, Together is planning ahead, usually by six to twelve months.

Collaborating for success

Besides looking outwards to its products and services, Together looks inwards for continual improvement in delivery. To this end, Mastek and Together are in daily contact. Not just to track and measure progress, but to assess ways of working, the mix of onshore and offshore resource, the performance of individuals, the support that they need, who to hire and when: everything that impacts on the success of the collaborative approach embraced by both companies.

Formalising innovation

‘Innovation’ can’t really be ordered on demand, but Together wants to be actively open to new ideas, and is looking to Mastek to bring them to the table.

“When we toured the Mastek Centre of Excellence in India and saw some of the things they were doing for other customers, it was an eye-opener,” says Thomason. “Today we have a joint innovation forum and meet regularly to discuss ideas.”

One of the novel approaches being tried is a hackathon, in which a number of small Mastek teams compete to come up with innovative solutions to a given Together challenge. Since most of the teams aren’t working on the Together account, it’s a productive — and fun — way for the Together/Mastek partnership to come up with fruitful new ideas to explore.

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BioCatch Strengthens Collaboration with Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services

Published

1 day ago

June 8, 2023

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Collaboration Delivers End-to-End Intelligent Banking Cloud Platform with Online Fraud Detection Powered by Next-Generation Behavioural Biometrics

BioCatch, a global leader in fraud detection, today announced the global expansion of its behavioural biometric intelligence solutions in collaboration with Microsoft and is now available as an offering for Microsoft’s Cloud for Financial Services (FSI Cloud).

Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services provides capabilities to deliver differentiated experiences, empower employees, and combat financial crime while facilitating security, compliance, and interoperability.

Working with Microsoft since 2011, BioCatch provides effective and comprehensive anti-fraud support, and through Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services, BioCatch can extend further protections for banks transitioning to cloud-based operations for a protected, frictionless digital experience for consumers.

BioCatch and Microsoft reliably enable consumer protections against fraud through BioCatch’s behavioural biometrics software and Azure’s intelligent banking platform, underscoring the impact the solution alignment has had with financial institutions for over a decade.

“BioCatch and Microsoft have been great partners for us in our mission to protect M&T banking customers from harmful fraud attacks,” says Aaron Steinitz, Director of Enterprise Fraud Policy and Governance, M&T. “The visibility we get into the data by leveraging BioCatch’s technology via Microsoft Azure enables our fraud teams to swiftly address complex fraud attacks and reduce manual reviews, giving our customers better protection and an improved experience.”

“We are excited to continue working with Microsoft to provide behavioural biometric cloud-based fraud protection solutions for financial institutions looking to reduce risk for their cloud operations,” said Eyran Blumberg, BioCatch COO. “As banks and fintech businesses take their operations to the cloud, threat actors looking to exploit cloud vulnerabilities and scam the consumer become a larger problem. BioCatch is proud to provide the necessary and effective solutions for financial institutions to continue growing in the right direction, with the important understanding that their consumer accounts are kept safe.”

One of the key elements of BioCatch’s technology now being available for Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services is the ability for financial services organisations to purchase BioCatch’s solutions through Azure Marketplace. This accessibility enables them to seamlessly combine their transition to cloud-based financial operations with a proven behavioural biometrics solution that can analyse billions of sessions per month for its users. Through this, Azure provides enhanced risk management and protection for customers through a seamless user experience.

“We’re pleased that BioCatch is tapping into the power of Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services to help financial institutions unlock business value and deepen customer relationships,” said Bill Borden, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Financial Services, at Microsoft. “We look forward to the enhanced opportunities this will bring to our joint customers, helping empower fraud and risk teams with behavioural biometric intelligence to act quickly while also giving consumers a safer and frictionless digital banking experience.”

BioCatch’s fraud prevention solution also keeps financial business operations in compliance with protection measures and digital safety requirements. With this, BioCatch’s behavioural biometrics solution enables financial institutions that use Azure to streamline fraud detection capabilities with global cloud scaling, keeping pace with the needs and demands of any cloud strategy financial institutions seek to deploy in Azure.

Business

One year until EMIR Refit: how can firms prepare?

Published

7 days ago

June 2, 2023

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Leo Labeis, CEO at REGnosys, discusses everything that financial institutions need to know about EMIR Refit and how they can prepare with Digital Regulatory Reporting (DRR)

There is now less than a year until the implementation date for the much-anticipated changes to the European Markets Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). The amendments, which are set to go live on 29 April 2024, represent an important landmark in establishing a more globally harmonised approach to trade reporting.

Despite the fast-approaching deadline, concerns are growing around the industry’s preparedness, with a recent survey from Novatus Advisory finding that 40% of UK firms have no plans in place for the changes, for instance.

Much of the focus in 2022 was on implementation efforts for the rewrite of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s swaps reporting requirements (CFTC Rewrite), which went live on 5 December. Both the CFTC Rewrite and EMIR Refit are part of the same drive to standardise trade reporting globally. While EMIR Refit was originally anticipated to roll out first, implementation suffered from repeated delays to its technical specifications, in particular the new ISO 20022 format. The ISO 20022 mandate was eventually excluded from the first phase of the CFTC Rewrite, hence the earlier go-live date.

In parallel, the Digital Regulatory Reporting (DRR) programme has emerged as a key driving force in helping firms adapt to continually evolving reporting requirements. Having participated in the DRR build-up for their CFTC Rewrite preparations, how can firms leverage these efforts to comply with EMIR Refit in 2024?

The drive to standardise post-trade

Leo Labeis

To understand the new EMIR requirements, it is important to first look at the two main pillars in the global push to greater reporting harmonisation.

The first is the Committee on Payments & Market Infrastructures and International Organization of Securities Commission’s (CPMI-IOSCO) Critical Data Elements (CDE), which were first published in 2018 to work alongside other common standards including the Unique Product Identifier (UPI) and Unique Trade Identifier (UTI). These provide harmonised definitions of data elements for authorities to use when monitoring over the counter (OTC) derivative transactions, allowing for improved transparency on the contents of the transaction and greater scope for the interchange of data across jurisdictions.

The second is the mandating of ISO 20022 as the internationally recognised format for reporting transaction data. Historically, trade repositories required firms to submit data in a specific format that they determined, before applying their own data transformation for consumption by the regulators. The adoption of ISO 20022 under the new EMIR requirements changes that process by shifting the responsibility from trade repositories to the reporting firm, with the aim of enhancing data quality and consistency by reducing the need for data processing.

Preparing for the new requirements with DRR

DRR is an industry-wide initiative to enable firms to interpret and implement reporting rules consistently and cost-effectively. Under the current process, reporting firms create their own reporting solution, inevitably resulting in inconsistencies and duplication of costs. DRR changes this by allowing market participants to work together to develop a standardised interpretation of the regulation and store it in a digital, openly accessible format.

Importantly, firms which are using the rewritten CFTC rules which have been encoded in DRR will not have to build EMIR Refit from scratch. ISDA estimates that 70% of the requirements are identical across both regulations, meaning firms can leverage their work in each area and adopt a truly global strategy. DRR has already developed a library of CDE rules for the CFTC Rewrite, which can be directly re-applied to EMIR Refit. Even when those rules are applied differently between regimes, the jurisdiction-specific requirements can be encoded as variations on top of the existing CDE rule rather than in silo.

Notably the UPI, having been excluded from the first phase of the CFTC Rewrite roll-out, is mandated for the second phase due in January 2024. DRR will integrate this requirement, as well as others such as ISO 20022, and develop a common solution that can be applied across the CFTC Rewrite and EMIR Refit.

As firms begin their own build, the industry should work together in reviewing, testing and implementing the DRR model. Maintaining the commitment of all DRR participants will strengthen the community-driven approach to building this reporting ‘best practice’ and serve as a template for future collaborative efforts.

Planning for the long-term

Although the recent CFTC Rewrite and next year’s EMIR Refit are centre of focus for many firms, several more G20 regulatory reporting reforms are expected over the next few years. These include rewrites to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) derivatives reporting regimes, amongst others.

Firms should therefore plan for the entire global regulatory reform agenda rather than prepare for each reform separately. Every dollar invested in reporting and data management will go further precisely because it is going to be spread across jurisdictions, easing budget constraints.

Looking ahead, financial institutions should establish a broad and long-term plan is to learn from their CFTC Rewrite preparation and how DRR can be positioned in their implementation. For example, firms should ask themselves which approach to testing and implementing DRR works best: via their own internal systems or through a third-party? Firms should review what worked well in their CFTC Rewrite implementation and apply successful methods to EMIR Refit. Doing so will enable firms to have a strong foundation for future updates in the years to come.