Intelligent Finance - Creating a customer focus revolution in retail banking

Intelligent Finance (IF) was a Scottish offset bank, a division of Bank of Scotland plc, part of Lloyds Banking Group. IF was set up at a time when many banks were exploring opportunities to use new technology to reduce the costs of providing financial services.

The Challenge

Not content to imitate others, in 1999, IF sought to build a bank based on a radically new customer proposition of balance netting and personalised service and to complete the design and build the new bank within 10 months.

What VISION did

• VISION was tasked with the overall management of the programme and had overall responsibility for integration and implementation.
• Commissioned to produce a detailed plan for the programme, called a Design in Action (DIA). Completed within eight weeks, it detailed the sheer scale of the project.
• Mobilised 500 consultants, project managers, and developers in three months.
• In parallel, Customer Service Consultants and administration teams commenced training with teams of VISION ‘resolvers’ fielding breakdowns and passing lessons back to designers.

The Results

• Within 3 years, IF was arguably the most successful direct bank in Europe.
• Balances at that time were more than STG £12 billion
• 10.4% market share of the UK net mortgage market
• Over 500,000 accounts
• 40,000 new current accounts within 18 months of launch

“VISION’s design and build of our systems have enabled us to be high-performance, customer-focused leaders in our markets. VISION’s program management gave us an Internet-Telnet bank in record time. In my estimation VISION is one of the top among management and technology consulting companies.” Jim Spowart – CEO Intelligent Finance