SaaScada nabs £2.5 million to back challenger banks

Due to the inflexible nature of the core banking black box, launching new banking services has traditionally been expensive, time-consuming, and restrictive. As a result, a lot of organisations have been frozen out, as the cost and complexity of launching services has been prohibitive.

Changing the scenario now, London-headquartered cloud native core banking platform SaaScada has raised £2.5 million to enable smaller financial providers to rapidly create competitive offerings. The seed funding comes from over ten investors, including prominent figures from the banking and private investment sectors. The startup will use this new funding to build on the momentum it has already created, accelerate growth and expand its footprint in the banking sector.

Founded by Nelson Wootton and Steve Round, SaaScada offers an agile core-banking engine that enables financial institutions to create and launch innovative banking services at speed and scale. According to the startup, it allows fintechs and challenger banks to launch new features and products in minutes, rather than months, at a much lower cost than traditional modular core banking platforms.

It has already roped in a strong roster of clients and partners, including two of the top 20 fintechs in the U.K. Following its success with fintech challengers, the platform is now building strong momentu m with banks to offering lending, deposit taking and current account products to both retail and SME customers.

Nelson Wootton, co-founder and CEO, SaaScada said: “Instead of forcing organisations to buy a suite of products that often don’t fully meet their needs or fit together, we’re enabling them to be part of a best of breed ecosystem. SaaScada sits at the heart of that ecosystem. This cohabitation model means banks can choose which technologies and partners they want to bring in, so they can create something more differentiated and unique. We believe this is the future of banking. It’s the only way to drive true innovation.”

Steve Round, co-founder, SaaScada added: “We have a sweet spot in a section of the banking market that has traditionally been excluded from developing best-in-class solutions, those organisations with a balance sheet size of £0.5 – £4 billion, which is where we can add significant value. With this funding, we will continue to build our engine, our partner networks, and our footprint and take ownership of this market.”