When Nelson Wootton and Steve Round launched a UK bank for low-income customers twelve years ago, they ran head-on into the problem that led to the creation of SaaScada’s revolutionary platform. They discovered that nothing on the market could deliver the product or data agility they wanted.
“We found the process of buying and deploying core banking really painful,” Wootton says. “Getting the reporting from different systems to understand how customers use the products then takes 6-8 weeks. In the worst-case scenario, the reporting might reveal there’s a problem. Implementing changes then takes another three months and results in a hefty invoice from the provider. Your team then waits the usual eight-week reporting period to know if the problem has been solved.
“So, we’re talking about the better part of a year to do a single product iteration. In today’s now-now-now world, that’s an aeon,” says Wootton.
Rethinking data architecture
Creating yet another microservices or API-driven core banking solution wasn’t going to solve the underlying issue. Wootten recognized that all existing core banking systems were being hampered by their architecture.
“They use structured data whereas we use completely unstructured data. We then have an event system that reads the unstructured data and builds structured databases for clients,” Wootton says.
By adopting a non-structured approach to data, SaaScada’s core banking system can adapt to the needs of the client. Reading and writing data are two completely uncoupled processes, meaning reporting can scale independently of transaction volume.
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Lending is what banks do, but shouldn’t be what the code predominantly does
A bank’s primary business is lending. Historically, this meant that core banking systems initially began with code to facilitate lending. All the code thereafter then becomes tightly coupled with the lending code, making it challenging to add code for other banking services that don’t somehow relate to lending.
The result is immense complexity, and a system so tightly intertwined that changing any part of it might have unforeseen ramifications on numerous other parts,
SaaScada tackled this by moving away from the concept of product modules. Instead, they provide a full suite of features within the Product Sequencer, enabling clients to create multi-ledger accounts which may include features and wallets that cross traditional product boundaries. Clients can mix and match features and intertwine without any fear of breaking other parts of the system.
“The ability to change, innovate, and configure your own service, alongside real-time data to tell you what your customers do and don’t do with those products—it’s an incredibly powerful position to be in,” says Wootton.
The proof is in the pudding
In evidence of its success, Allica Bank, the UK’s fastest-growing fintech ever, according to its website, utilises SaaScada’s core banking technology. Allica Bank was also named the UK’s fastest-growing company in The Sunday Times’ Top 100 for 2024. Allica hit profitability in 2023 and hopes to capture 10% market share in the next five years.
SaaScada has clients in the UK, Switzerland, Mauritius, Zimbabwe and South Africa, and has its eyes set on the Nordics, Baltics and Eastern Europe. The company is about to start its Series A and is looking to open offices in Singapore and Dubai.
Perhaps the most mind-boggling of all its feats is the ability to sell fully-fledged core banking per hour for less than the cost of an average lunch.
“We’re already deploying in a few hours. By the end of this year, we’ll be deploying in minutes. Don’t bother with an RFI or an RFP. Pick a data centre you want it deployed in, and we’ll deploy it,” says Wootton.
