Challenger Lender B-North Taps Mambu, nCino For Launch

U.K. challenger bank B-North has tapped two FinTechs to power its small business lending and banking operations.

In a press release Tuesday (Sept. 3), B-North said it will collaborate with Banking-as-a-Service firm Mambu and cloud-based loan and deposit origination platform provider nCino as its core infrastructure: Mambu and nCino will themselves collaborate directly to integrate each other’s services for B-North, the firms said. B-North described this kind of integration across all three firms as “a market first.”

The partnerships will enable B-North to accelerate loan processing for small business customers and allow the bank to embrace flexible infrastructure to “future-proof” its operations.

B-North plans to open its first regional lending operation in Manchester in 2020, which will be followed by the rollout of other additional, localized lending teams, or “pods,” the bank said, adding that localizing small business lending allows for faster processing and availability of funds for borrowers.

“This three-way relationship neatly highlights our FinTech-enabled model,” commented B-North Co-Founder and CEO Jonathan Thompson in a statement. “B-North unlocks real benefits by harnessing the best technologies and combining them with our unique regional origination approach.

“We aim to facilitate SME lending, with market-leading technology and lead times, and to give our customers the best of the traditional and the modern,” he continued. “We look forward to building our relationship with Mambu and nCino to deliver maximum benefit to our future customers.”

In another statement, B-North Chief Technology Officer Ewan Hutton pointed to the advantages that a challenger bank like B-North has when developing solutions from the ground-up, “without legacy systems or legacy business processes.”

“We can design the solution around our customers’ needs and leverage the very best cloud-based technology,” he said. “Mambu have already proved their engineering capabilities with their core banking solution in the marketplace and for B-North it is a perfect fit [versus] traditional solutions that are over-engineered legacy designs with recent front-end face-lifts.”