A Rare first in banking: Thought Machine unveils Vault Rare feature
Thought Machine unveils Vault Rare banking platform
Thought Machine, a UK-based core banking software provider, has unveiled Vault Rare, claiming this new feature of its flagship Vault offering will allow banks’ customers to edit, adjust and even visually style banking products themselves. Dharmesh Mistry reports for FinTech Futures.
In a single platform – Vault Rare – the vendor says it offers maximum flexibility for banks to create any account-based financial product. The built-in features banks can add to products can be extended unlimited by the platform, “the platform is only limited by the banks imagination”, according to Mark Warrick, chief design officer at Thought Machine.
Rare has been conceived from the company’s design labs led by Warrick, who says “banks adopting Vault Rare can design their own fantastic products, but more importantly, they can give every single customer who passes the necessary credit checks the ability to edit and shape what they want until they are 100% happy.
“Users can adjust obvious things like the amount, the duration, and the payback frequency, but they can also add breaks in the timeline and style their own loan or mortgage visually, which is completely unheard of in the realm of banking.”
In an exclusive media briefing, Warrick demonstrated how users could customise their own products, effectively making every product unique based on customer choices. He drew analogy to Ford’s Model T car, which Henry Ford is famously quoted as saying “any customer can have a car painted any colour they want as long as it’s black”, Warrick said: “Banks have always wanted to offer personalised banking but have been scuppered by their core technology, limiting the flexibility of the products they can offer to their customers.”
Aside from Vault Rare’s flexibility, Thought Machine says it’s unique in its capability to process product configuration and simulation in the same place, so adjustments to loan terms can be shown to the customer in real time. Built on modern technology, calculations are done in milliseconds to ensure a truly dynamic user experience, the company emphasises. For the bank it means the calculation is maintained in one place, thus reducing maintenance costs and accelerating time to market of any adjustments.
Thought Machine has been developing its flagship core banking platform – Vault – since its inception in 2014. It claims Standard Chartered in Hong Kong, SEB in Sweden, and Atom and Lloyds Bank in the UK as key client wins. The latter is also an investor in Thought Machine, holding a 10% stake in return for £11 million.
