Secure Trust Bank and SCC

The overview

Secure Trust Bank (STB) is a well‐established brand in the UK retail banking sector, which was founded in 1952. As a bank, it looks after people’s savings and lends money to consumers and small businesses. In 2011, it launched on the AIM section of the London Stock Exchange and in 2016 it was successfully listed on the Main Market. Its vision is to build the best bank in Britain, and so it chose SCC to help it on its way.

“Remaining competitive in today’s economic climate is critical to achieving our plans,” says Roy Aston, chief technology officer at STB, “and we can only do that by ensuring that our systems are built to support and complement our business objectives.”

Aston is responsible for all of STB’s IT architecture, infrastructure and the implementation of new technology. He says, “Our overarching goal is to build the best bank in Britain and to do it in a manner that’s both straightforward and transparent for our customers and for us as colleagues,” he says. “We have a track record of successfully integrating businesses into STB Group, therefore it’s crucial we remain flexible so that when opportunities arise our IT strategy is an enabler rather than a blocker to growth.”

“What helped SCC win our business was their approach to both the bid process and how they would manage the initial operation”

Selecting SCC

In 2015, STB undertook a strategic review where it examined its approach to how it provisioned systems and all associated IT services. Aston explains, “As part of the review we identified capabilities we considered fundamental to being a bank and that we wanted to keep under STB control. We also identified the principles we needed to adhere to in today’s market where we operate in a highly regulated environment and are subject to the evermore demanding requirements of customers and business introducers.”

Up to that point, STB had either sourced or developed and managed virtually everything inhouse. “So we had a choice,” says Aston, “either continue with that approach along with all the attendant requirements for operating successfully in today’s environment or concentrate on building the best bank in Britain and buy more services from specialists such as SCC.”

When selecting an organisation as its strategic cloud‐hosting partner, STB ‘took for granted that its short‐listed organisations would all meet its criteria for measures such as availability, scalability, reliability and security.’

Aston says, “What helped SCC win our business was their approach to both the bid process and how they would manage the initial operation, which was to support a new system implementation and all subsequent migration.”

Future progression

Going forward, having SCC as its strategic IT partner means STB will have continued assistance achieving its business’s ambitions and goals. “Migrating in‐house hosted applications to Cloud+ will continue through this year but we have also spoken with SCC about using some of their other products and services,” Aston explains. “This wasn’t a prerequisite as part of the initial selection but we see this as a real benefit in an environment where working with third parties is only going to increase.”

He concludes, “It appears that both SCC and STB share the same ambitions for their businesses even though we operate in different markets. In today’s environment that’s really refreshing and a credit to SCC.”

A winning service

“It appears that both SCC and STB share the same ambitions for their businesses even though we operate in different markets. In today’s environment that’s really refreshing and a credit to SCC”

“SCC introduced us to people who quickly commanded our respect and it was obvious there is a close cultural alignment between our organisations,” says Aston, “In my experience, that makes the difference when things get difficult and tricky discussions are needed – and that’s inevitable when you’re developing long‐term relationships.”

Part of the STB vision is ensuring providing services to customers that at least meet and hopefully exceed their expectations. In a world where cyber security threats are emerging rapidly, Aston says, “It’s incredibly important that we can assure our Executive very quickly of any new emerging threats.”

The partnership with SCC has given the Bank confidence in its technology and services. “Working with SCC has given us access to a range of technology experts that work alongside us to define and implement the solutions. They are then able to provide a service that ensures our systems are being proactively monitored and managed 24/7, avoiding the need for us to effectively build our own IT company.”

Aston explains that it is when projects get difficult or things don’t go quite according to plan, that you see the true spirit of a supplier. “In my experience and for everything we’ve drawn from SCC, their commitment is consistent with that of our own people and that’s just a real testament to the professionalism and competence of the team. They’ve made a real effort to understand our business, integrate with our team and really bought into our vision, to such an extent that despite the governance that we’ve got in place, it doesn’t feel like an outsource arrangement, and they operate just as an extension of us.”

Roy Aston, CTO of Secure Trust Bank said, “Working with SCC has given us access to a range of technology services and industry experts that work with us to define and implement the solutions that are supporting our vision to build the best bank in Britain”