Future-proofing digital banking 

Delivering positive customer experiences can reduce costs associated with customer enquiries by up to 33 per cent. Aldermore Bank, a UK based specialist lender and savings bank listed by Forbes as one of the world’s best banks, recognised the need to improve its customer experience in a competitive financial market. That’s why it turned to software engineering expert Catapult to streamline digital interactions and improve personalisation — with the goal of transforming its customer journey.

Aldermore Bank operates predominantly through digital channels, which led it to reassess its online banking infrastructure. As part of a forward-thinking initiative, it decided to transition from its legacy platform to a more scalable and responsive solution.  

Previously, elements of the user interface (UI) design left some customers frustrated. The platform’s design posed challenges in meeting evolving customer expectations, and implementing improvements to the customer experience in a timely fashion.

Aldermore Bank wanted to break away from its legacy technology and build a new platform, with complete ownership of the intellectual property (IP), allowing it to manage, customise and modify it freely.

It required a scalable, resilient and secure system that would improve its customers’ online banking experience. The system also needed to ensure compliance with all applicable financial regulations, including those mandated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA regulates the financial services industry in the UK, and is responsible for protecting consumers and maintaining market integrity, alongside regulations such as The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the UK Data Protection Act (DPA). 

These regulations grant individuals greater rights over their personal data and impose stringent obligations on data controllers and processors, ensuring robust data protection, security and operational resilience.

Focussing on customer experience 

In a strategic move, Aldermore Bank turned to Catapult to design and deliver a custom-built, cloud-native platform. By focusing on user experience, security and system stability, Catapult set out to modernise both the product and its underlying technology, as well as Aldermore’s approach to development. 

This included adopting practices like smaller, incremental updates, faster feedback loops and a responsive approach to user feedback, providing Aldermore with the tools to meet its evolving goals and provide a better customer experience. 

Setting up a robust foundation

The project was carried out in several key phases, following a methodology that enabled Catapult to be agile and allowed for fast iterative and incremental improvements. 

Stage one was using infrastructure as Code (IaC) to set up a scalable infrastructure in Amazon Web Services (AWS) to support a cloud-native application. This setup ensured a secure, flexible and scalable platform that could grow with Aldermore's needs. 

The next step aimed to establish the build and deployment pipelines that enable CI (Continuous Integration) and CD (Continuous Delivery) for fast, reliable and automated updates to the system without interrupting service. Feature flagging was also implemented, allowing Aldermore to enable or disable specific features in real-time without deploying new code. This made it possible to roll out new features and updates daily without downtime so that Aldermore could rapidly improve and expand the platform. 

In addition to CI and CD, Catapult implemented a DevSecOps approach to ensure that security was fully integrated into the development and deployment processes. With DevSecOps, every change in code or infrastructure underwent automated security checks to detect vulnerabilities early on. Any issues were flagged and addressed before deployment, ensuring that the platform remained secure without delaying new feature releases.

Automated real-time threat detection and mitigation processes were also implemented, allowing the system to monitor for and respond to security threats as they occur. This proactive approach enabled rapid identification and neutralisation of potential threats, reducing risk and maintaining platform integrity.

Catapult worked closely with Aldermore to agree on the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). To define the MVP and, more specifically, the Minimum Viable Replacement (MVR) to ensure a smooth transition. 

Defining the MVR meant prioritising that existing customers could log in and continue to manage their accounts securely. Given that the bank already had an existing platform, the focus was on rebuilding the core functions without disrupting customer access during the transition — ensuring a seamless experience that didn’t break the bank or compromise on essential features.

Testing and preparation 

“We integrated feedback from Aldermore’s internal teams and conducted user research to refine the platform’s features for the MVP,” explained Craig Cook, chief engineer at Catapult.  “The new user interface (UI) was designed using wireframes from Aldermore’s Figma design instance and developed in NodeJS^®, a cross-platform, open-source JavaScript runtime environment.”

The new Server-Side Rendered (SSR) components enabled a smoother, more intuitive user experience, which significantly reduced customer reliance on the contact centre. Before going live, the platform was tested in a private beta phase with a select group of users. This phase allowed the team to gather valuable feedback, perform final adjustments and ensure the system was fully operational. The beta testing phase also allowed Catapult to stress-test the infrastructure, ensuring its stability and performance under real-world conditions.

“As a result of the comprehensive testing and preparation in the earlier stages, the platform went live without any major incidents,” explained Cook. 

Benefits

The platform’s implementation has brought significant benefits to Aldermore Bank, including a rise in the Business Savings customer Net Promoter Score (NPS) from 46.5 to 65.8, with a peak of 70.3. Automation of routine tasks, like account updates and automated emails has resulted in saving 31 hours per month, while self-serve capabilities have reduced email enquiries, leading to a net saving of 130 hours monthly. 

What’s more, improvements to the account origination process now prevent premature account funding, saving 91 hours per month.

The project successfully delivered a modern, scalable and secure banking platform, enabling Aldermore Bank to take full ownership of its online services.