NatWest has announced a strategic minority investment in Icon Solutions, a leading fintech provider of payments technology and consultancy services. The investment follows the news last September that NatWest selected Icon Solutions Payments Framework (IPF) to accelerate the bank’s payments modernisation.
Launched in 2020, IPF is a low code payment framework that empowers business payment experts to create industry leading workflows, along with enabling software engineering teams to quickly extend and create highly customizable integrations into existing bank systems.
The investment and ongoing partnership with Icon Solutions is expected to accelerate NatWest’s strategic outcomes in the payment space, provide customers more choice and lay the foundation for future payments innovation.
It forms part of a payment platform modernisation plan which will build on the bank’s existing relationships and accelerate its ability to respond to the rapidly changing payment market.
By making strategic investments, NatWest continues to build on its long-standing partnerships to drive innovation for customers and colleagues.
Mark Brant, Chief Payments Officer at NatWest comments:
“Our relationship with Icon Solutions has already helped us to bring our payments estate to life. This investment is fundamental to the delivery of our modernisation in payments technology, which will enable us to better serve our customers and to remain at the forefront of the payments industry.
“We continue to play a major role in developing payment innovations for the future, embracing new technologies, standards and capabilities to shape the future of the payments landscape while improving customer experience.
“Combining the scale and resilience of a bank with the speed and innovation of a fintech like Icon Solutions means we can bring new payment services to our customers quickly and safely.”
Tom Kelleher, Co-founder and Director of Icon Solutions comments:
“NatWest and Icon have been on a journey together since 2019 to modernise payments at the bank, inspired and led by Ian Povey and Mark Brant. We have a common belief in the adoption of low-code technologies to deliver new payments systems quickly and safely, with a significantly lower cost profile.
“Overcoming vendor lock in and powering in-house builds with the Icon Payments Framework (IPF), NatWest can now drive change from within. Building new revenue streams, anticipating regulatory change, responding to market changes or competitive pressures. Today’s investment is much more than an investment, it’s a commitment to a future where payments are safe, immediate, and flexible.”
About NatWest
NatWest Group is a relationship bank for a digital world. We champion potential; breaking down barriers and building financial confidence so the 19 million people, families and businesses we serve in communities throughout the UK and Ireland can rebuild and thrive. If our customers succeed, so will we.
About Icon Solutions
Icon Solutions is a payments solutions company providing financial institutions with technology, payments subject matter expertise and multi-disciplined services. Financial institutions engage these capabilities on their payments transformation journey from defining their payments strategy through to accelerating IPF-based solutions built by their in-house engineering teams, by Icon and/or by a Systems Integrator.
The Icon Payments Framework (IPF) is Icon’s major contribution to the payments industry. It is the framework that underpins payments orchestration solutions, and sits at the heart of the core payments architecture of banks such as Citi, UBS, NatWest and BNP Paribas. Leveraging the IPF software development kit, banks can easily, quickly and safely deliver payments systems with a low total cost of ownership. IPF also features a range of additional optional modules and ready-made integration to clearing and settlement schemes to accelerate the implementation of end-to-end payments solutions.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240314980122/en/