Transforming Payments Infrastructure Between Two Merging Banks

How Qurated facilitated payments infrastructure modernisation between two merging banks.

Integrating Payments Platforms Post-Acquisition

Following a high-profile merger, one of the UK's leading retail and commercial banks embarked on a strategic modernisation of its payments infrastructure to drive resilience, efficiency, and long-term scalability.

The Payments Transformation Programme (PTP)

The bank launched a Payments Transformation Programme (PTP) to consolidate the dual payment estates into a single, modern, and highly resilient outsourced managed service.

This involved:

  • Transitioning all Faster Payments, CHAPS, and SWIFT (international) processing to the managed service provider.
  • Implementing a new Liquidity Management Tool to improve cash visibility and control.
  • Aligning with major industry-wide transformations including the migration to ISO 20022 message standards and the Bank of England's Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) Renewal Programme.

The Challenge

Delivering the Payments Transformation Programme required coordination between multiple suppliers and internal teams, creating complexity in a multi-vendor environment. The bank suffered from:

  • Fragmented supplier collaboration. Each vendor operated in silos, often leading to delays and friction. One supplier would halt progress citing dependencies on another team, rather than operating as a single, integrated unit.
  • A gap in payments expertise. The initial supplier teams lacked sufficient depth in high-value payments and industry-specific standards such as CHAPS, SWIFT, Faster Payments, and SEPA. This limited the bank’s ability to progress confidently through key design and delivery milestones.
  • Excessive supplier costs. Existing suppliers were extremely expensive and not delivering the level of expertise expected. The bank needed a more cost-effective and higher-quality proposition that could deliver immediate impact.
  • Tight delivery timelines. With regulatory deadlines approaching, the bank needed to reinforce the programme quickly with the right talent and a more collaborative delivery model.

The Qurated Project

Qurated was engaged to deliver across these core areas:

  1. Strategic Leadership & Governance
    Qurated deployed senior leaders to work with executives, established a governance model, and created the first full roadmap across key banking areas.
  2. Augmented Agile Delivery Squads
    Specialist squads were embedded across mortgages, savings, and payments to accelerate delivery and build internal capability.
  3. Payments & Regulatory Alignment
    Qurated ensured payments transformation aligned with regulations and integrated smoothly with broader programme goals.

Consolidated Platforms for Future Growth

The Payments Transformation Programme represents a major step forward in consolidating payments onto a modern, resilient platform capable of supporting future growth and industry change. Following the project, the bank saw immediate impact across these core areas.

  • Renewed Project Momentum Key analysis and design activities were unblocked, allowing the PTP to resume delivery at pace.
  • Improved Collaboration By fostering a one-team culture, communication between suppliers and internal stakeholders improved significantly, reducing friction and increasing accountability.
  • Cost Savings Qurated’s model enabled the bank to achieve stronger delivery capability at a significantly lower cost, ensuring resources were optimised without compromising on quality.
  • Enhanced Delivery Confidence With stronger domain expertise and improved collaboration, the programme moved forward against its release roadmap with renewed confidence.

Through rapid mobilisation, deep payments expertise, and a cost-effective collaborative delivery model, the bank was able to overcome key delivery challenges, strengthen supplier collaboration, and accelerate progress toward a unified, future-ready payments landscape.

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