Fintech startup

The Company 

A European fintech startup has taken the banking sector by storm by providing financial services for retail customers in an app. The new customer onboarding process is purely digital and takes minutes. The app is extremely customer-friendly and allows customers to perform not only free basic banking services like current accounts, savings and card payments, but also premium services such as crypto investments. They’ve won a number of awards for their app design as well as awards in the financial sector. And because they’re an app-only bank, their cloud based technology platform is by far their most important asset. They found themselves in the enviable position of having a budget to buy the best technology available, but the less-enviable part was experiencing growing pains through unmanaged services and lack of inventory.

The Challenge

The neobank has grown incredibly quickly since its founding - they’ve even reached unicorn status - and this rapid growth and international expansion has led to an interesting challenge: How to better track and manage their existing assets (both physical and virtual). Previously, resources were tracked in tools they created in-house, but these manual tools became inefficient as the company grew. This led to a situation where they could not show hardware asset data and their relations to microservices and applications in real time. Because they were unable to understand the current status of their hardware inventory - they could not track names and owners - this created a regulatory risk moving forward in terms of resilience, incident response, financial tracking and change management.

The Choice

GuideVision’s flexibility and agility played a large part in the neobank’s initial choice. GuideVision’s local regulatory experience in banking also proved to be a very good fit, as did our extensive business consulting experience. GuideVision has deep experience in providing ServiceNow-based solutions to banks and other financial services companies. Our ability to coordinate directly with ServiceNow also was a key factor.

The Solution

GuideVision’s solution combined technical expertise with business process understanding and experience with regulatory requirements. On the technical side, working in close cooperation with ServiceNow, GuideVision developed a solution that integrates AWS and Kubernetes discovery with service mapping. The new solution also leverages ServiceNow’s unique flexibility to integrate data from the fintech startup’s other systems.
But technology was only part of the solution. GuideVision worked with strategic and regulatory advisors to make sure the project meets or exceeds regulatory requirements. And we are working with the neobank to make sure their investment into ServiceNow is a sustainable success, not just a quick win.

The Results

For an app-only bank, the platform is their most crucial asset. With their new solution powered by ServiceNow, the fintech startup now has a 360 degree view of their technology platform.
The new solution significantly improves time to market. Being able to see the state of their hardware and assets will enable the fintech startup to create new features and products much more quickly and efficiently because they now know where to look. Now they know precisely what they are spending their money on and how to achieve and maintain compliance.
GuideVision’s solution provides stronger real-time governance over business-critical processes. This governance also extends to future expenditures: Because they know what they have now, they know what they’ll need in the future.

Key Highlights

The Client: A leading fintech startup in the European banking and financial services space.

Solution: Real-time asset tracking, microservice management and systems integration that leverages the power of ServiceNow

Headquarters: European Union

Industry: Banking and financial services

Geographies: Most EU countries

Employees: Around 1500 employees

ServiceNow Partner: GuideVision