Backbase announced today the availability of its new managed cloud platform, Backbase-as-a-Service. The solution makes the company’s broad portfolio of digital banking offerings available to FIs looking to accelerate their ability to develop and offer new technologies to customers.

In their statement, the company depicted banks as challenged by not one, but two types of technologically-driven competitors: digitally-native neobanks and big tech-first companies that are beginning to develop financial products (“TechFin”). The problem of legacy, non-digital infrastructure, according to Backbase, is a key hurdle for most banks when it comes to “keeping pace” with the new digital services these rivals are able to offer. Backbase-as-a-Service enables FIs to develop their digital solutions faster, and to bring them to market without having to overcome their outdated infrastructure – or bear the high cost of replacing it with another on-premise system.

Backbase CEO Jouk Pleiter called the cloud “an exceptional tool” to help financial institutions transition to becoming digital first. “We believe the move to cloud is an unstoppable one, and one which every financial institution needs to embrace,” he said. “Our clients want the freedom to innovate and maintain their competitive edge, so launching Backbase-as-a-Service is the logical step or us.”

The technology will enable banks to take advantage of innovations in account aggregation, security and identity verification, personalization, and smart banking. Developers benefit from the option to use shared or dedicated Backbase environments, as well as multiple sandbox environments to support the development and testing of new integrations and products. BaaS provides 99.9% uptime, database backups and multi-zone redundancy, as well as end-to-end encryption for all communications. The solution meets regulatory requirements, including the ability to audit across environments.

A multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winner, Backbase most recently demonstrated its digital banking platform at FinovateEurope 2018. Headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and founded in 2003, the company inked a deal with Payveris late last year to provide FIs with an integrated digital payments and money movement solution. With more than 100 FIs using its technology, Backbase includes Barclays, Citi, KeyBank, Navy Federal Credit Union, and Societe Generale among its customers.

Digital banking firms Backbase and Payveris have signed a partnership deal which will see the creation of an integrated digital payments solution, reports Alex Hamilton of Fintech Futures, Finovate’s sister publication.

According to the two firms, their combined offering will enable financial institutions “of all sizes” to deliver “next generation” payment and money movement services.

“The banking industry’s legacy payment infrastructures are increasingly fragmented, inflexible, costly, and difficult to integrate with,” the companies write in a press release.

“Backbase’s raison d’être is clear: to develop and deliver efficient, effective tools that help financial institutions accelerate their digital transformation and provide superior digital experiences for customers,” said Jouk Pleiter, Backbase CEO. “By integrating the Payveris solution into our own, we are solving yet another pain point for the industry. Banks and credit unions have been crying out for a way to modernize and simplify their payments operating environments.”

Marcell King, chief innovation officer at Payveris, added, “By combining the power of Backbase’s progressive digital banking platform with the flexibility of Payveris’ open API MoveMoney Platform, you end up with a real wow-factor for a user interface, with functionality that delivers low friction digital money movement and management.”

At FinovateEurope 2018, Backbase unveiled the Customer OS in a demo that won the Amsterdam-based company Best of Show honors for the fourth time. Last July, the company teamed up with Jumio to deliver online ID verification services and in December the company partnered with Polish bank BGŻ BNP Paribas Bank.

Capital Bank of Jordan has signed for Backbase’s digital channels platform, reports Martin Whybrow of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

The Dutch supplier’s solution will cover both customer and employee digital channels across institutional and retail banking.

A key stated aim is faster time-to-market for new products. Capital Bank has signed for the full product stack based around Backbase CXS 6, which is the latest version, launched at the end of 2017, and comes with identity and access management capabilities. The deal includes the Backbase Entitlements component and DBS digital banking back-end services.

Implementation will be carried out by Backbase and one of its partners, Lisbon-based Bring Global. The system will be deployed on the cloud and will integrate with the bank’s core system and other applications. The bank is a long-standing user of Temenos’ T24, which has its own digital channel offering.

Capital Bank’s CEO, Ala Qumsieh, describes Backbase as “an ideal long-term strategic partner” for the bank’s digital transformation.

Backbase has a reasonable number of Middle East users. An addition last year, Lebanon-based Société Générale de Banque au Liban (SGBL), included plans for a roll-out in Jordan.

At FinovateEurope 2018, Backbase unveiled the Customer OS in a demo that won the Amsterdam-based company Best of Show honors for the fourth time. Last July, the company teamed up with Jumio to deliver online ID verification services and in December the company partnered with Polish bank BGŻ BNP Paribas Bank.

BGŻ BNP Paribas Bank, the Polish bank, is going omnichannel with Backbase, as is it aims to enhance its digital services and ability to link up with fintechs, reports Henry Vilar of Finovate’s sister publication, Fintech Futures.

The Backbase Omni-Channel Banking Platform introduced a new digital platform that aims to encourage the use of agile project management in the bank. BGŻ BNP Paribas’ Fast Forward strategy has focused on digitization as it looks to be more agile and more able to quickly respond to market changes. Having grown from a series of mergers, the bank had previously inherited various legacy systems – thus requiring to up its game in terms of flexibility and agility.

“Cooperation with Backbase is a natural consequence of the requirements of our transformation program. Our new strategy is based on five core pillars: simplicity, digitization, quality, growth, and enthusiasm,” said Piotr Marciniak, head of digital and mobile of Bank BGŻ BNP Paribas.

Initially, internet banking will be moved over to the new platform, but plans are to move to a single architecture, and implement Backbase mobile as part of this. BGŻ BNP Paribas Bank is also changing the way it develops and runs projects, with a heavy emphasis on fintechs, digital, and continuous integration continuous development (CICD).

“BGŻ BNP Paribas Bank emphasizes cooperation with sought-after fintechs. We constantly seek out the best, most innovative projects to support our operations, and are glad to implement some of their ideas in our bank,” added Marciniak.

At FinovateEurope earlier this year, Backbase unveiled the Customer OS in a demo that won the Amsterdam-based company Best of Show honors for the fourth time. In July, the company teamed up with Jumio to deliver online ID verification services.