Modernising the tech stack is fundamental to becoming a Modern Mutual – prioritising automation, channel consistency, seamless customer experiences, and leveraging insights from data.

• Whilst modernisation isn’t just about technology, it does still play a key role in delivering a better, more efficient and digitally enabled service to your customers.

• Take time to identify the right technologies for you. Many Building Societies will have a technology ecosystem powered by vendor solutions – finding the right vendor(s) will be key to success.

• The ecosystem will need to be architected in a way that allows for flexibility and interoperability. This means prioritising API-driven, microservice architectures.

What is the technology and infrastructure scope a Building Societies transformation?

• Core system: The central technology infrastructure supporting various business operations, encompassing core banking, mortgage/loan origination, CRM, MI/reporting, data warehouse, and decisioning tools, all need to be interoperable with other third-party platforms, and easily configurable to enable rapid product updates and enhancements.

• Mortgage and loan origination system: Must prioritise automation at every step of the journey, enabling digital document upload, rapid decisioning and simple product configuration.

• Broker portal: An online platform for external partners (brokers/intermediaries) to manage loan applications, access product info, and communicate with the lender.

• Customer portal: Mobile/web portal to a customer's banking services, designed around core journeys, with feature parity across channels.

• Savings origination system: Must prioritise rapid account opening and account access. Savings functionality should consider added value features like savings pots, goal setting and budgets.

• CRM system: Has to enable a single view of the customer, with key data and insights surfaced across colleague channels and comms platforms.

• MI & reporting suite: Suite of tools covering data collection, analysis, presentation, generating reports, dashboards, and insights into financial performance and operations available across colleagues.

• Data warehouse & BI: Surfaces key business and customer insights aligned to the OKRs and KPIs of the Society as a whole, which help to drive prioritisation decisions and product development.

• Decisioning tool: Data-driven decision-making, using rules, and models for risk assessment, fraud detection, pricing optimisation, and more.

How do Building Society Leaders and Industry Experts view the role of technology transformation in the sector?

• "Implementing IT upgrades is crucial, but it’s equally important to ensure that technology is utilised appropriately to meet customer needs. We want to be technology enabled, but with people at the heart." - Peter Burrows, CEO of Cambridge Building Society

• "Investing in technology will allow us to keep members secure, whilst allowing us to be adaptable, dynamic, and have the ability to be responsive to changes in the market. Overall, it is an enabler to deliver our strategic goals." - Chris Hunter, Deputy CEO of Darlington Building Society

• "Technology can help unlock so many areas that are core to a Building Society’s purpose and mission. Using technology and trusted data to do the manual and heavy lifting frees up our teams to focus on the human aspects of customer management and community relationships." - Maria Harris, Industry Expert

To be a Modern Mutual, you need a modern technology stack that is highly interoperable, digital enabled, ideally cloud based, and powered by the right innovative technology provider(s) for you.