A major South American bank wanted our help to launch a new digital bank aimed at its next target segment of customers. The bank chose Capco because of our global proven track-record in digital delivery, subject matter expertise and strong market relationships.
The wholly digital, app-based platform runs on both iOS and Android devices and went live on app stores in 2017. Today, the standalone digital bank has over 2 million customers.
Over the past ten years digitization has transformed our lives significantly, from the way we read, communicate and socialize, to how we shop and consume financial services. Many banks all over the world have felt the pressure to develop new products and experiences to retain customers and acquire new market share; and the strong and vibrant Brazilian banking community have been no different.
The bank knew that the millennial demographic (those born between 1981 and 1996) wanted digital services. Any solution needed to provide the flexibility younger customers expect from retailers today, such as an app that provides 24/7 access, account registration and verification, online support, payments and budgeting services.
Capco, who employ a 75 percent millennial workforce, got to work on designing, building and implementing a market-competitive new digital platform for the bank in just 17 months. This included end-to-end consulting and system integration services, such as delivery management, solution design, architecture, enterprise platform development, testing, go live readiness, post go live support and scaling management.
Product features included:
Devising a structured and tailored project delivery
We recognize that there’s ‘no one size fits all’ approach to building banks. We also recognize that local industry methods, and guiding stakeholders smoothly through programs, mitigates the risk of some unexpected surprises. That’s why managing the bank’s business and technology alignment across multiple partners, spread across multiple geographies, remains a cornerstone of this project’s success.
Designing flexible and scalable solutions
We wanted to ensure as little disruption to business as usual as possible for the bank, so we designed the new digital platform to be built ‘on top’ of the bank’s core legacy platforms. This enabled the bank to harness the power of more modern, lean and flexible technology but still integrate with the legacy infrastructure when required and increase speed to market. It will also help pave the way for the mother bank’s future migration to digital in time. The solution design also took into account segregation and separation principles to migrate quickly to a new core if desired.
Using modern ways of working
To keep things moving, we deployed nine Agile sprint teams comprised of cross-functional, multi-lingual, multi-regional consultants and developers. This ensured tasks were properly assigned, project milestones met, and that constant communication, feedback and support was available to the bank. As the bank was being developed, the ways of working in the organization were being migrated in parallel. The teams were closely integrated with the banks’ teams and other strategic partners. The team worked with one unified delivery model.
Promoting collaboration and partnering across the fintech ecosystem
Capco partnered with several third-party vendors within the digital space to deliver the implementation of the new bank. Our multi-supplier innovation sessions helped empower business and program partners to collaborate and be actively involved in the early decision-making process.