Nationwide partners Accenture, Form3 to improve digital payments system

The move is aimed at improving the customer experience with better transactions in response to the growing demand for digital payments.

Nationwide's digital payments infrastructure will be transformed through the adoption of a cloud-native platform that has reportedly been designed with resilience and compliance at its core. This will enable the building society to adapt its operations to meet regulatory changes such as ISO 20022. The solution will be cost-efficient, helping Nationwide to process an increasing volume of payments whilst meeting customer expectations, according to Nationwide’s press release.

The cloud solution provided by Form3 will connect financial institutions to payment schemes such as Faster Payments and BACS, based on an account-to-account platform. This will reportedly enable Nationwide to simplify and strengthen its payments processing, evolving alongside its business while meeting the expectations of its customers, as stated by the official press release.

Accenture, which has been collaborating with Nationwide for over a decade, has been selected as the strategic delivery partner for its payments modernisation programme. The firm brings its expertise in this space, along with its cloud engineering and architecture capabilities.

Nationwide will migrate all types of retail payments from an on-premise platform to the Form3 cloud through a series of phases launched in 2022. A process will be in place to ensure there is no service interruption for customers.

The Global Payments Lead at Accenture said that the accelerating digitisation of payments, coupled with ongoing economic turbulence, is shaping how consumers transact and move their money. Nationwide’s transformation is an example of a traditional financial institution embracing next-generation payments and reinventing customer experiences at speed and scale, supporting future growth, continuous innovation and industry relevance.

The Form3 CEO said that as digital payments increase, many financial institutions are starting to modernise their infrastructure to compete effectively. Working with Accenture, Form3 will help Nationwide transition its payment processing to a reportedly modern, efficient, secure, and resilient platform without impacting service delivery.

Nationwide's Payments Director said that the building society has seen massive growth in cashless payments in the UK, with Nationwide processing around 450 million retail transactions each year. The solution will enable Nationwide to facilitate an increasing volume of payments while meeting the expectations of its customers. This project is a major step in simplifying and strengthening Nationwide's payments processing, the official press release concludes.