UK’s Nationwide targets £4.1bn tech investment
The UK’s Nationwide Building Society will invest a further £1.3 billion to bring its total revamp plan to £4.1 billion over the next five years.
“We can afford to take a longer-term view”
The investments will be used for the usual “growth” plans but also “explore entry into new markets such as SME”. For the latter it has already launched a new £50 million fintech fund in June.
According to Nationwide, the investment will see between 750 and 1,000 jobs created and the opening of a new technology hub.
Tony Prestedge, Nationwide’s deputy chief executive, says: “As a mutual we can afford to take a longer-term view rather than focus on short term gains. The pace of technological change means that we need to reassess continually how we serve our members in order to remain relevant, valued and competitive.”
The investment will address six areas. These comprise revamping its underlying application and infrastructure; developing a greenfield digital platform; and investment in branches – such as video.
In addition, it mentions vague “service experience”; reducing current data stores from 20 to two, and investment in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning; and the hub as mentioned above.
Nationwide turns to history to remind us of previous tech changes.
Last year it built digital distribution channels and says over half of all its new members and other product sales were completed through these channels.
In 2014 it integrated three separate acquired businesses (Derbyshire, Cheshire and Dunfermline building societies) and completed the account and systems migrations.
Also in that year, it completed a SAP core banking implementation, migrating around five million accounts.
Nationwide offers current accounts, credit cards, ISAs and personal loans. It has around 15 million customers and 18,000 employees.
