Lloyds to up digital game with Thought Machine
Lloyds Banking Group has partnered with and invested in Thought Machine, a UK-based banking tech company, to accelerate the digital transformation of the bank’s business.
Thought Machine gets investment from Lloyds Bank
Lloyds’s £11 million investment represents a 10% stake, part of its Series A £18 million round. The fintech has developed Vault, its cloud-native core banking technology.
Zak Mian, group director, transformation at the bank, says: “A key part of our recently launched three-year strategic plan is applying technology innovation to meet our customers’ evolving needs.”
The new technology aims to provide customers with more tailored products, enable faster development cycles and further digital banking. Lloyds will enter into a development and deployment phase in 2019.
Lloyds says it is still looking to make further investments to accelerate the delivery of its digital banking programme.
Thought Machine has also been in litigation with Capco for some time. Capco claims that Andrew Tarver stole tech and IP developed by Capco/Bold Rocket – where Tarver worked. This would eventually be Thought Machine’s tech, according to Capco. The consultancy firm was asking for £145 million.
Earlier this year, Thought Machine went through a re-organisation process. Here, Thought Machine Ltd and Being Technologies both became Thought Machine Group.
Though Tarver was never on Thought Machine’s payroll, he has been associated with the Being Technologies.
Thought Machine was originally turned down by Capco when it first tried to settle the matter, but it seems that now the two firms have come to an agreement and there is no longer a court case.
The re-organisation and the quiet settlement might have been aimed towards erasing Tarver’s relationship with Thought Machine in the public eye.
Recently, FinTech Futures reported on the job changes that Lloyds’ digital transformation entails.
