Financial services

Case Study:

Clydesdale goes offshore with .NET

30 April 2008

Clydesdale Bank's offshore expansion meant it needed a new online banking system to support its new operation in Guernsey. With the help of iMeta, the bank built a future-proof solution to meet its needs.

Clydesdale Bank International is a subsidiary of the National Australia Bank group of companies, an international financial services group operating across four continents and 15 countries. With 2,800 staff and 180 branches, Clydesdale is one of Scotland’s largest banks and is currently expanding its operations into the south of England with its innovative Financial Solutions Centres, offering customers a highly integrated business and private banking service.

As part of its ongoing business expansion into the offshore market, Clydesdale had identified a need to build a secure offshore online banking system. Clydesdale looked at an administered banking option via a local private bank, which enables organisations to offer offshore banking without having to take the course of setting up their own offshore infrastructure.

The private bank had worked with software developer iMeta to successfully deliver offshore banking systems to major financial organisations, and the Clydesdale Bank team recognised iMeta was an expert in its field. Clydesdale therefore commissioned the company to build a feature-rich, customer-facing Web interface to an existing banking application. A further challenge lay in the short timescales set by the business and the need for cooperation with the local bank.

Throughout the project, iMeta worked closely with both partners to design an end-to-end solution that would fulfil Clydesdale Bank’s current requirements and also grow with evolving market needs.

With the new system, Clydesdale Bank customers can apply for an account online, log on and manage their account, request transaction statements, create regular payments into a nominated bank account, transfer money between offshore accounts, update their personal details online and send secure e-mails to the bank.

“The iMeta team has been a tremendous asset to the project. They took the time to really understand our business priorities and delivered a solution that exceeded our expectations,” says Gary Nilsen, project manager at Clydesdale Bank. “We needed a solution that could grow with us, so the iMeta team looked at how their solution would morph into where we want to be in five or ten years time, thus ensuring the solution is future-proof.”

Built using Microsoft .NET 2.0 technology, the iMeta solution delivered a flexible interface that allowed Clydesdale Bank to tailor the customer experience in very short timescales. The bank’s corporate branding changed in the middle of the project, and was immediately updated within the new system without incurring additional branding costs.

“Working with iMeta is very straightforward. There is a natural willingness to recommend a solution that is appropriate for what we are looking for, and it is always delivered with a high level of performance, exceptional quality and inherent flexibility,” says Nilsen.

The solution provided by iMeta enabled a phased approach to the project, and additional phases are planned to further enhance the customer experience. The ability to work this way enables Clydesdale Bank to respond to changes, thus making the solution future-proof.

“As an application, it has ticked all the right boxes,” says Nilsen. “The branding, the performance, the security, the integration with legacy – that was a bonus for us.”