How do you want to pay? Card, cash, cheque, online, mobile, account-to-account… NatWest Group recognises that its 19 million customers come in all shapes and sizes. So, while the technologies available to customers today might be changing rapidly, the principle remains the same (and has done for all of the big brands part of the Group’s storied history), banking should be open for all.
NatWest’s Head of Group Payment Strategy, Lee McNabb, is intent on doing just that by putting the customer first while modernising the Group’s payment strategies to future proof its capabilities.
Payments Modernisation
“Our strategy is one of going above and beyond compliance through core modernisation, with cloud and API first infrastructure; effectively opening up payments both internally and externally but with the right protections,” explains Lee. “That’s really important for us. A real focus on resilience, reusability and faster to market feature delivery.”
It’s all part of a strategy for modernisation which “drives not just cost benefit, but real focus on growth” he adds. “We’re approaching it with a Payments-as-a-Service/business mindset. I work hand in hand with our CTO for payments, Ian Povey, to try and shape that delivery so it’s consumable at executive level. But also so that is tangible for the people who are doing the work and actually making that delivery. That’s really important, because we want everyone across the Group to be on the same journey. If you are working directly with the customer or doing requirements in an agile manner day after day, it’s understanding that we’re all part of the jigsaw. We want to make sure payments delivers for all our customers.”
Open Banking
One of the reasons why Lee joined NatWest Group was its reputation as a progressive and innovative organisation committed to Open Banking. “As a bank, we’ve been one of the market leaders since the inception of the original mandate. Let’s remember, Open Banking was originally a piece of compliance from the payment services directive. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) saw that big banks needed to open up and needed more competition. We saw the opportunity to make a difference for our customers. We’ve taken that broader ‘open’ approach and gone way above and beyond the mandate, which no one else did. NatWest has its own proprietary go to market Open Banking solution, Payit. We’ve got our bank of APIs that sit at the centre of the house managing all our API traffic internally and externally. And looking after that future compliance for all our efforts from smarter use of data to open everything and beyond…”
It’s a very customer-centric strategy, one based around enhancing experience, explains Lee. Furthermore, financial management tools, budgeting tools, insights, spending habits, all form part of a collective proposition around the payment and ‘open’ agenda, linked to the trust that a big bank holds.
Payit
“Regulatory engagement and partnership is key,” he continues. “We work with the regulator(s) to ensure good customer and participant outcomes. With Payit, we have customers from across the industry, from New Day to Interactive Investor to Wetherspoons, who are all utilising Payit to take account-to-account payments as opposed to cards. Our strategy goes beyond immediate returns on that investment. There’s not yet the huge margin of financial benefit we’d maybe see in the card space. It’s about improving customer experience, driving innovation and providing choice. Ultimately, going above and beyond towards where we see a really important shift for UK PLC; that move to account-to-account and Open Banking is a fundamental channel to enable that.”
