We are delighted to announce Telefónica Tech won Financial Technology Partner of the Year at the 2022 Scottish Financial Technology Awards.
The Scottish Financial Technology Awards celebrates the development of the Scottish Financial Technology ecosystem, while recognising outstanding individual and organisational achievements within the Financial Technology sector in Scotland. Hosted in the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Edinburgh on Thursday 6th October 2022, 15 awards were presented on the evening – winners including Lloyds Banking Group, TSB and Modulr.
The Financial Technology Partner Award recognises the best partnership collaboration between a Financial Service or Fintech company and an external partner from outwith the Financial Services sector.
Telefónica Tech was named winner of the award due to the transformational work undertaken with our customer, Virgin Money. While Telefónica Tech have had a successful working relationship with Virgin Money since 2017, the award was based on our recent project to build, implement and launch a best-in-class business banking onboarding solution for the bank.
The innovative solution is unprecedented and not offered by any traditional banks or financial institutions in the business banking space. Using Microsoft’s Power Platform with integrations to Virgin Money banking systems and third-party credit decisioning platforms, the fully branded online portal allows prospective customers to find company information, add additional information and submit an application with instant approval or rejection response and real-time automatic bank account and online banking profile creation.
With an average journey to straight-through decision taking just 10-25 minutes, the solution has been transformational for Virgin Money, with its customer acquisition rate increasing from 5% to 34% since implementation. The solution is a major breakthrough for Virgin Money as it looks to cement its place as digital leaders in SME finance.
Key achievements recognised by the judges included:
- Customer acquisition increasing from 5% to 34% since implementation and continues to grow
- Huge increases in straight-through application (no colleague involvement), with an average journey time being completed in minutes (10-25) instead of days/weeks
- Vast majority of customers being onboarded and underwritten with a wholly digital experience.
In addition to the unique offering for the market, the onboarding project has allowed Telefónica Tech and Virgin Money to both massively accelerate their Agile adoption, in tandem. The size and scale of this project have allowed both organisations to recruit, adopt and implement Agile practices in what was, a traditionally waterfall environment.
Telefónica Tech and Virgin Money’s partnership has proven to be long-lasting and truly agile, particularly with the onboarding journey. Since the original solution was implemented in 2021, multiple enhancements and extensions have been – and continue to be – implemented to improve the overall ROI of the solution and expand the customer benefits across a wider base.
Steven Brown, Financial Services Business Unit Director, Telefónica Tech said, “We are honoured to be named Financial Technology Partner of the Year at the Scottish Financial Technology Awards. Our work with Virgin Money has been a truly best-in-class and it is a testament to both teams that the hard work has been recognised and I would like to thank Virgin Money for their tireless work on the project. The award gives recognition to an already strong partnership between ourselves and Virgin Money and we look forward to seeing what we can achieve together going forward.
I would also like to thank our valued partners Microsoft as always for their exceptional support and guidance.”
Telefónica Tech has built a strong reputation in the Financial Services sector and is thrilled that our services to the sector has been recoginsed at the Scottish Financial Awards. To find out more about how Telefónica Tech can aid your organisation’s digital transformation, please get in touch.