by Chiara Rossi
Thought Machine, customers and business of Intesa Sanpaolo's partner company for the digital bankStart Magazine
All the moves (and Chinese and French aid) of India and Pakistan on submarinesStart Magazine Thought Machine, customers and business of Intesa Sanpaolo's partner company for the digital bank 00 Numbers, shareholders, top management and curiosities about Thought Machine, the British fintech operator that will contribute to the development of Isybank, the digital bank announced by by Intesa Sanpaolo
Intesa Sanpaolo has chosen the fintech Thought Machine to develop its new Isybank digital bank. Thought Machine is a British software company founded in 2014. It has developed a cloud core banking technology that allows banks to automate their processes, save costs and create digital banking services. All the details on the startup cloud banking.
THE INTESA SANPAOLO ISYBANK PROJECT "Isybank will make us resilient in the face of attacks and competition from fintech since with Isybank we go from incumbent and challenger bank with a much more complete offer", announced the CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo Carlo Messina, during the conference call for the presentation of the plan to 2025. Isybank focuses on cloud-native technology, adaptable to a multi-currency context and multinational customers, since it works in partnership with Thought Machine, a leading fintech operator. WHAT THOUGHT MACHINE DOES As stated on the website, Thought Machine was founded in 2014 with the mission “to enable banks to implement modern systems and move away from the legacy IT platforms that plague the banking sector”. The company offers the cloud core banking platform, Vault. Its open and connectable architecture allows integration with other leading software providers in the banking ecosystem. It has over 500 people located in offices in London, Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne, New York. SEB, IQ CAPITAL, LLOYDS AMONG THE INVESTORS The UK firm has raised over £ 110 million in funding from Eurazeo, Draper Esprit, SEB, British Patient Capital, IQ Capital, Playfair Capital, Nyca Partners, Lloyds Banking Group and Backed. THE TOP Leading the company is founder and CEO Paul Taylor. The latter founded Thought Machine in 2014 because he wanted to use the same cloud technology he tried while working at Google to solve the problem of the banking sector's legacy infrastructure. As reported on the website, Will Montgomery wrote the Vault code in 2015. Taylor acted as product manager, setting up and leading the overall direction of the system, a role he still plays today.
THE CEO IS A FORMER GOOGLE
Prior to Thought Machine, Paul Taylor founded two software companies, Rhetorical Systems and Phonetic Arts, and both were acquired by global software companies, Nuance and Google. After Phonetic Arts was acquired by Google in 2010, Taylor joined Google to lead a team of engineers responsible for launching the pioneering text-to-speech system in 2012.
THE PARTICIPATION OF THE LLOYDS GROUP
In 2018 Lloyds Banking Group acquired a stake in Thought Machine, as part of a "strategic partnership" designed to accelerate its ambitious digitization plans. The bank has invested 11 million pounds for a 10% stake in the company. Lloyds had worked with the company since 2017 with the aim of implementing its cloud banking technology. THE PARTNERSHIP WITH GOOGLE ON THE CLOUD In 2019 Thought Machine announced a partnership with Google Cloud during Google Cloud Next in London. As a Google Cloud partner in the Partner Advantage Program, the UK company works closely with the Google Cloud team to expand international opportunities. “Many of our customers have already chosen Google Cloud to run Vault and this partnership further strengthens the relationship. We are delighted with the collaboration already in place between Thought Machine, Google Cloud and our customers, "said Paul Taylor on the occasion.
ALSO INTESA SANPAOLO PARTNER OF GOOGLE CLOUD
In this regard, it is good to remember that at the end of 2020 Intesa Sanpaolo, following the conclusion of the negotiations initiated with the Memorandum of Understanding signed on May 21, 2020, also signed the definitive agreements with Tim and Google on the basis of which the institute will migrate a part relevant information system on Google's cloud services. As stated in the joint note, the agreement will benefit from the creation of two Google Cloud Regions in Turin and Milan, on which Intesa Sanpaolo will build its digital services. The Google Cloud Regions will be built within Tim's Data Centers.
ALL BANKS THAT HAVE CHOSEN VAULT
Finally, returning to Thought Machine its clients include large international banks. In addition to Lloyds Banking Group, we find Standard Chartered, which uses Vault software for its Mox digital bank in Hong Kong, Swedish financial services group Seb and ING Bank. In the US JPMorgan Chase is rolling out a new cloud-based core system for its retail bank using Vault. In January, Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia (ARBM), a 100% subsidiary of the world's largest Islamic bank by assets, Al Rajhi Bank of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), chose Thought Machine to develop their digital bank of the next generation. The latest customer is Mascoma Bank, the US savings bank with offices throughout New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Mascoma Bank is the second public bank to run digital banking services on Vault. This is followed by Arvest, an Arkansas-based bank, which signed up to use Vault in September 2021.