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Customer Spotlight

Bankline Direct for Financial Institutions

Find out how Financial Institutions are unlocking the value from NatWest's APIs

London Mutual Credit Union is using our solution to improve their customer’s experience.

Offering equitable banking services to the community

Our cloud-based solution, Indirect Access APIs, is supporting London Mutual Credit union (LMCU) to serve communities with fair and ethical banking services.

LMCU are part of the global credit union movement, consisting of almost 300 credit unions across the UK. They currently serve over 35,000 members. Our partnership enables LMCU to use NatWest Bankline Direct’s faster payment rail via API connectivity to operate a 24/7 real time payment service.

API connectivity provides a secure, efficient channel to enable financial institutions on a transformation path who want to offer digital, real- time payments to their customers.

Using digital technology to deliver a customer-focused strategy

Credit unions typically never stray far from their market proposition. London Mutual Credit Union’s belief is that credit unions are built by the people, for the people. During the pandemic, that proposition helped forge deep relationships amongst their members. To better serve these members, LMCU had to invest in digital transformation initiatives.

LMCU approached NatWest Bankline Direct for ways to transform their payment processing. Security, speed and convenience were of particular importance and vital for service-oriented organisations like LMCU, who receive tens of thousands of payments for members.

Before implementing our API solution, it could take up to 3 hours to credit payments to their members. LMCU, supported by Tata Consultancy Services, were keen to find a solution that would process payments and make them available within minutes.

Customer Driven Solutions

Our strategy

Helping financial institutions to remove obstacles that prevent a seamless experience when making payments is a key driver of the NatWest Bankline Direct API strategy. NatWest Bankline Direct’s strength is deploying customer-centric innovation.

Whilst working collaboratively with LMCU, what stood out was that they are also driven by their member's experience, with innovation in their DNA. In partnership with Tata Consultancy Services, they adopted Bankline Direct APIs, transforming their customer experience.

London Mutual Credit Union & Tata Consultancy Services

'The adoption of Faster Payments is part of a wider strategy that has seen London Mutual Credit Union adopt the Tata Consultancy Services BaNCS Digital core banking software. Tata Consultancy Services and London Mutual Credit Union look forward to continued innovation to deliver value for their members, within an increasingly competitive UK financial services market'

Lakshman Chandrasekera, CEO London Mutual Credit Union

Delivering solutions through powerful partnerships

Through close collaboration, the capability, including interface development, testing and support, was developed to connect via the TCS Bankline Direct Indirect Access service, using the NatWest Faster payments API (ISO 20022).

 

'Our APIs will now strengthen London Mutual Credit Union’s online presence so that they can focus on providing services to end consumers, perfectly aligning with our commitment to positively impact and be a relationship bank for a digital world'.

Matthew Bausor, Head of Bankline Direct Product, Natwest

 

 

API integration as our solution

London Mutual Credit Union selected the Bankline Direct API solution to deliver digital, real-time payments to their members via Tata Consultancy Services banking platform. The APIs also support better reconciliation with instant notifications.

Find out more about Bankline Direct

So what's next?

2021 has so far seen us go live with 6 APIs and we continue to invest in underlying infrastructure to enable our API strategy. Our vision is for Bankline Direct APIs to be the fastest payment and data insight application within UK financial services.

With feedback from ten customers, we want to continue advancing our product offering at an accelerated rate. Given the customer brands we serve, we know that every single payment via Bankline Direct APIs is business critical. So building a world class, secure, reliable, and scalable proposition is our key focus.

The future: Building APIs for businesses of every size

We’re building APIs for some of the biggest companies in the UK. Our customers are often stuck using old legacy systems. Our customers want to reduce complexity and won’t put up with outdated technology.

Our true north is to build 10 times faster. We’re currently working on reporting APIs to deliver valuable data in near real time. This will enable  treasury and finance teams to make fast, business critical decisions. This will help solve a problem that our customers have been emphatic in raising.

We’re excited about the growing acceptance of API as a channel. 

Interested in Bankline Direct? Get in touch

If you’re an existing NatWest customer, get in touch with your Relationship Manager directly.

If you’re new to us, or prefer to register your interest, send us your details using the link below and we’ll be in touch.

Email us

Bankline Direct is available to NatWest business account customers who meet the specific eligibility criteria detailed here.  Fees apply.