How does Thought Machine differentiate itself in the market?
Thought Machine differentiates itself in the market for several reasons:
• Cloud-native: Our cloud-native core banking platform, Vault Core, is designed to be fully cloud-native, utilising modern cloud technologies. This allows an elegantly designed, scalable, and real-time platform to support the entire banking operation.
• Configurable: The system is fully configurable through APIs and scripting languages, enabling banks to support any banking product. This flexibility allows banks to launch innovative products or replicate existing ones to facilitate migration.
• Independence: Thought Machine offers banks the freedom from vendor lock-in, allowing them to independently manufacture products and maintain control over their product roadmap using smart contracts.
• Trusted by Tier 1s: The platform is trusted by some of the largest banks globally, such as Standard Chartered and Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia. It is underpinned by significant investment in research and development to enhance the product continuously.
• Total cost of ownership: Thought Machine’s solution simplifies banking operations by eliminating silos and increasing automation, leading to a reduced total cost of ownership. This streamlined approach requires fewer IT and operations teams, significantly lowering operational costs for banks.
What are the unique features of Thought Machine’s core offering?
Thought Machine’s Vault Core is built from the ground up using cloud-native technologies. The founders focused on creating a solution that is inherently modern and designed for the cloud rather than simply updating an existing system. Unlike outdated legacy systems, Vault Core ensures real-time processing and scalability, and it can support a Tier 1 bank. This foundation allows flexibility across various banks, products, and payment types.
A standout feature of Vault Core is its use of smart contracts, which externalise product logic. This grants banks greater control over product development and helps them avoid vendor lock-in—a crucial advantage over competitors that rely on rigid, proprietary systems. Additionally, Vault Core reduces the total cost of ownership by simplifying operations and boosting automation, making it an appealing choice in the core banking sector for its engineering excellence, adaptability, and cost efficiency.
What are the key benefits that banks can expect from adopting Thought Machine’s technology?
Banks adopting our technology can anticipate several key benefits. They will gain complete control over product configuration through Thought Machine’s smart contracts, which allows for rapid innovation and market launches without the risk of vendor lock-in. Vault Core, with its superior engineering, offers outstanding performance and scalability. It efficiently handles the needs of large institutions and global FinTechs while providing scalable, real-time processing suitable for complex banking environments. Additionally, banks can enhance customer experience by offering 24/7 access and a seamless, personalised experience across all platforms. This capability, combined with smart contracts, enables the creation of tailored and innovative products that keep banks ahead of the competition.
Banks of all sizes can expect a secure and streamlined migration process. With robust migration tools and dedicated client engineering support, banks can transition smoothly from outdated legacy systems. This ensures existing products are replicated and simplified while maintaining data integrity and regulatory compliance.
How important is the Indian market for Thought Machine?
The Indian market is becoming increasingly vital for Thought Machine. Indian banks recognise the need for resilient, high-performing technology to compete with new entrants and support the growing economy, which is projected to grow to $7 trillion by 2030. For instance, our client PayU faced the challenge of meeting the increasing demand for digital lending and bridging the lending gap with digital-first solutions. This need for agility led them to migrate their credit offering, LazyPay, to Vault Core. As Indian banks move from legacy systems to modern alternatives, Thought Machine’s expertise and core banking services align well with the market’s demand for modernisation and agility.
How different do you see the needs of Indian banks compared to global banks?
The needs of Indian banks differ significantly from those of their global counterparts, primarily due to local market dynamics, regulatory frameworks such as Aadhaar and UPI, and banks’ current technology ecosystem. While banks in the UK, the US and a few other geographies have their homegrown legacy systems, most large Indian banks are on third-party legacy systems that cannot sustain the growing large-scale and performance needs and provide the product flexibility that the evolving market in India demands.
How does Thought Machine plan to tailor its solutions to meet the specific needs and challenges of the Indian banking sector?
We believe Indian banks can significantly benefit from Vault Core, which allows for innovation and swift product launches tailored to the local market. Additionally, we consistently achieve high-performance and scalability certifications for our platform to support all banks effectively. We plan to customise our platform for UPI, allowing banks to 1) launch new products aimed at UPI, such as credit on UPI, and 2) manage the increasing volume of UPI transactions that their existing systems struggle to handle.
Another key segment for us in India is Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs). We are the only platform that allows Indian NBFCs to consolidate and manage various lending products—such as personal loans, home loans, education loans, and loans against property—on a single platform. This consolidation enables efficient product management and better data utilisation across their lines of business. Additionally, we are forging partnerships with established local system integrators and complementary platforms to deliver holistic solutions to banks, NBFCs, and other financial institutions in India.
You partnered with Quantifeed’s platform to enhance wealth management services. Why is this partnership important for Thought Machine? How does it fit into your global expansion plan?
The partnership with Quantifeed is essential for Thought Machine as it allows the company to enhance its offerings in the private banking sector globally. By integrating Thought Machine’s Vault Core with Quantifeed’s QEngine platform, the collaboration provides a seamless solution that enables banks to transition from legacy systems and develop innovative investment products. This partnership fits perfectly into Thought Machine’s global expansion plan, attracting a broader clientele looking for modern, customer-centric financial services. By streamlining advice generation and trade execution, the alliance delivers a superior customer experience while boosting financial institutions’ productivity. Ultimately, this collaboration positions Thought Machine to solidify its presence in the wealth management space worldwide.
How does Thought Machine envision the future of banking, particularly in terms of digital transformation and customer experience?
We envision the future of banking as increasingly digital, real-time, and customer centric. Banks will move away from legacy systems to become agile, providing seamless, 24/7 automated services with instant payments and rapid customer onboarding. With a modern cloud-native core, banks will leverage advanced data analytics to give customers enhanced insights into their spending and provide personalised financial advice. With a unified view of their financial products, clients will enjoy tailored services that respond swiftly to their needs. This transformation, driven by increased competition and rising customer expectations, will enable banks to operate at lower costs, innovate rapidly, and serve previously unprofitable segments, ultimately creating a more engaging and efficient banking experience.