Lloyds Banking Group

Democratizing financial technology with a suite of API-based solutions

FinTech Infrastructure

Form3 is a British company that offers banking support services by providing a cloud-based payment processing, clearing, and settlement infrastructure for banks and regulated FinTechs through APIs. The platform facilitates agency payments through several popular clearing and settlement systems, including the UK Bacs, Faster Payments, Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), and SWIFT payments.Form3 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/20436">completed testing and certification </a>for the Federal Reserve's new instant payment offering, FedNowSM Service, in July 2023. The company was reportedly among the first companies to complete testing and certification for it.Key customers and partnershipsForm3’s platform is reportedly used by Tier1 banks and fast-growing FinTechs in the UK and Europe.In March 2024, Form3 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27918">partnered</a> with Portugal-based <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/71031">Feedzai</a>, an anti-fraud and financial crime software provider, to launch an authorized push payment (APP) fraud prevention solution. Form3 partnered with Mastercard in July 2021 to launch the “PayPort+” gateway that provides easier access for financial institutions and payment service providers into the UK’s Faster Payments Network (a network that enables real-time mobile, internet, telephone, and standing order payments). This partnership was formed shortly after Mastercard invested an undisclosed sum in Form3 in December 2020.Form3 has also partnered with British payments and accounting firm Countingup in September 2020 to help small businesses leverage real-time payments to simplify workflows and manage their finances and accounting functions. Form3 subsequently partnered with Goldman Sachs (GS) in April 2022, to leverage GS’ Transaction Banking (TxB) infrastructure and offer cross-border payments and FX capabilities to Form3’s regulated financial institution customers (across 124 currencies in 163 countries).

Founded by former Google engineer Paul Taylor, Thought Machine is a British company offering cloud-native, API-based banking infrastructure platform “Vault” for incumbent banks to replace legacy tech and for digital and challenger banks to develop banking services. Users can leverage Vault to connect to existing systems within a bank (such as payments and credit decisioning) or develop retail banking services such as current and savings accounts, loans, mortgages, and credit cards, among others. The company also offers the “Vault Payments” for cloud-native card and payment processing.Vault also lets users design workflows and use smart contracts, while offering data analytics and reporting. Notably, the platform can be hosted through several cloud service platforms including Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and IBM Cloud.Vault offers its infrastructure for existing banks through three main forms: 1) digital greenfield banks (to build an entirely new, scalable digital bank), 2) new products to existing banks (to embed new banking products without creating entirely new banking infrastructure), 3) replatforming banks (to migrate existing banks to Vault from legacy IT systems).Thought Machine has a global presence with its workforce of over 500 people (as of November 2021) based across offices in London, New York, Singapore, Sydney, and Melbourne.Key customers and partnershipsIn July 2024, Thought Machine <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/31519">partnered with</a> Hong Kong-based <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/172140">Quantifeed</a>, a digital wealth management platform, to offer an integrated solution for private banks across the globe. In October 2023, Thought Machine <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/23010">partnered with Form3 </a>, a British cloud-based payment processing, clearing, and settlement infrastructure provider, to expand its end-to-end payment processing for banks and financial institutions in the US and Europe. In February 2022, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8481">Thought Machine partnered with Intesa Sanpaolo </a>(Italy’s largest bank by total assets) to power “Isybank,” a new digital banking platform. Along with this partnership, Thought Machine also received an investment of GBP 40 million (USD 54 million) from Intesa Sanpaolo.Its customers include several large, global banks such as Standard Chartered, Lloyds Banking Group, and SEB Group. Vault was also picked by Arvest Bank (incumbent bank in operation for over 60 years), in September 2021, to modernize Arvest’s core banking platform to deliver personalized, real-time banking services to its clients.

Based in the UK, Moneyhub offers an API-based open finance infrastructure platform for applications including payments, data aggregation, affordability checking, analytics, and pensions dashboards. Accordingly, it caters to a range of enterprises such as employee benefit consultants, pension companies, wealth managers, lenders, retailers, and insurance companies. Moneyhub reportedly enables its users to connect to “thousands” of financial institutions across 37 countries (as of December 2022). The company offers documentation and PSD 2 compliance solutions and noted that its infrastructure complies with upcoming regulations relating to Consumer Duty and Pension Dashboards.Key customers and partnerships Moneyhub reportedly had over 100 clients, as of December 2022, including Mercer, Standard Life (a part of Phoenix Group), Lumio, OpenMoney, LEBC, and Roqqett, among others. Funding and financialsIn December 2022, Moneyhub <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15390?industryIds=53">raised GBP 15 million </a>(USD 18 million) in funding from Phoenix Group, thereby closing a GBP 55 million funding round (which began in October 2022). The funds were earmarked for product development and to expedite the internationalization of its platform.

Delio is a British company that offers a white-label infrastructure platform for banks, wealth managers, and other financial institutions to enable their investors to access unlisted opportunities, such as private equity, private debt, and real estate. The infrastructure digitizes the private investment lifecycle by empowering users to originate, syndicate, and distribute private market securities. Delio also provides user insights and governance frameworks to help financial institutions build better relationships with their clients. As of March 2022, the company served more than 90 financial institutions across the globe, including large, global institutions such as Barclays, UBS, and Sumimoto Mitsui Trust Bank. Delio <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8888?industryIds=53">raised USD 8.3 million in funding in March 2022 </a>, led by Octopus Ventures, to invest in expanding its international operations.

Providing AI-driven market intelligence and workflow automation to give firms an edge

Capital Markets Tech

Fnality provides digital payment infrastructure using blockchain technology. The company aims to build tokenized versions of major currencies backed by funds held in central bank accounts. The company's core offering is the Fnality Payment System, which uses distributed ledger technology (DLT) to enable 24/7 real-time settlement of financial transactions. This system is designed to simplify cross-currency payments, improve intraday liquidity management, and support new digital payment models in wholesale financial markets and emerging tokenized asset markets.Fnality's technology allows the creation of digital cash assets that can settle tokenized transactions with finality. The system is designed to be available in multiple currencies, interoperate across various business platforms, and represent money held in central bank accounts. This approach aims to provide a more efficient and secure method for settling financial transactions, including securities trades, intraday derivatives, and collateral exchanges.In December 2023, Fnality launched its first operational system, the DLT Sterling Finality Payment System (£FnPS), in the UK. This system, underpinned by a central bank omnibus account and a bankruptcy remote structure, enables atomic settlement and delivery versus payment, addressing settlement risk. The £FnPS is designated as a systemically important payment system by the Bank of England, providing regulatory oversight and confidence in its operations.

London-based Acin provides operational risk management solutions for the financial services industry. The company's core offering is a digital platform that enables financial institutions to digitize their operational and non-financial risk analysis using data analytics. Acin's technology automatically collates data from multiple sources to create a unified view of the operational risk environment. Using proprietary AI, the platform securely reviews organizational data and compares it to the wider industry, generating a unique picture of the organization and its relation to the broader sector.&nbsp;The company's platform does not replace existing Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) systems but takes Operational Risk Control data from GRC and other sources and matches it into the network. Acin's natural language processing (NLP) applies AI to analyze and match large amounts of new data entering the network as well as match regulations with each bank's individual Risk Controls.Key customers and partnershipsAcin has built an Operational Risk Control data network comprising 14 of the world's largest banks, such as J.P. Morgan and Citi.

Facial recognition delivers incredible convenience to consumers, as well as serious risks.

Facial Recognition

Yoti is a UK-based digital identity company that provides secure identity verification. The Yoti ID is a secure digital ID app that lets users store their personal details and completely control how much information is shared with third parties. Yoti’s system prevents data mining and selling of personal information – only the ID holder can share their information with others.&nbsp;The company provides customer verification solutions for businesses, including identity verification, age verification, eSignatures, and authentications. Yoti also offers Digital ID Connect, a network of reusable Digital ID apps, and provides citizen-centric digital ID solutions for the public and private sectors.Yoti operates through a B2B sales model. It has established overseas operations in Australia, Canada, India, the US, and New Zealand. The company uses advanced technologies such as facial biometrics, encrypted codes to prove user identity online, and AI anti-spoofing technologies. Moreover, its system is designed to prevent the mining and selling of user data to third parties.Key customers and partnershipsYoti has partnered with several companies, including Post Office and Lloyds Bank to create Digital ID Connect and Galaxkey to eliminate phishing and email fraud with verified senders and receivers. In addition, it has partnered with Synthetic Solutions, Reflex Gaming, NCR, StrongPoint, JNCTN, and ForgeRock. Meanwhile, it serves a customer base across the social media, gaming, financial services, retail, background screening, gambling, and healthcare industries, as well as in the government sector.&nbsp;

Cryptocurrencies

Fnality International is a fintech startup founded in 2019 that provides digital payment infrastructure leveraging blockchain technology. The company aims to build tokenized versions of currencies backed by funds held in central banks, enabling real-time cross-currency payments. Fnality's blockchain-based system simplifies cross-currency payments, offering 24/7 payment rails with the ability to reduce settlement cycles to real-time while improving intraday liquidity management.
In December 2023, Fnality commenced its Sterling Fnality Payment System (£FnPS) operations with participation from Lloyds Banking Group, Banco Santander, and UBS. The £FnPS brings together the safety and institutional quality of central bank funds with the functionality and resilience of blockchain technology for wholesale payments. Fnality has previously conducted proof-of-concept demonstrations showcasing its capabilities, including real-time settlement of tokenized securities, real-time cross-border FX swaps, and real-time repo transactions.
In November 2023, Fnality secured GBP 132.7 million in total funding after raising GBP 77.7 million in a Series B round led by Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas, along with investments from DTCC, Euroclear, Nomura, WisdomTree, and existing backers. The funding will support Fnality's global liquidity management ecosystem for new digital payment models in wholesale financial markets and emerging tokenized asset markets.

Using AI to mimic and understand human language

Natural Language Processing Tools

Aveni is an Edinburgh-based RegTech company that specializes in developing AI-powered solutions for the financial services sector. The company's core offerings include Aveni Detect and Aveni Assist, which leverage advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) and generative AI technologies to enhance risk assurance, compliance, and productivity in financial advisory services. Aveni Detect focuses on automating quality assurance processes, analyzing 100% of customer interactions to identify risks, improve agent performance, and ensure regulatory compliance. The system can assess calls, automatically select high-risk interactions for human review, and provide rapid navigation through call attributes. Aveni Assist, launched in June 2023, is a GPT-powered AI assistant designed to boost productivity for wealth and financial advisers. It can perform tasks such as attending meetings, writing investment reports, auto-populating CRM systems, creating tailored customer emails, and conducting instant compliance checks. As of June 2023, Aveni claimed that Aveni Assist could enhance adviser productivity by up to three times, reducing administrative tasks from hours to minutes. In July 2024, Aveni announced plans to develop FinLLM, a financial services-specific large language model, aimed at setting new standards for transparent, responsible, and ethical adoption of generative AI in the UK financial services sector.Key customers and partnershipsAveni has established partnerships with major financial institutions in the UK. In July 2024, the company announced collaborations with Lloyds Banking Group and Nationwide to develop FinLLM. These partnerships aim to drive the adoption of AI in financial services while ensuring transparency, trust, and accuracy in AI applications specific to the industry.

Aveni is an award-winning FinTech company, dedicated to enhancing human expertise and efficiency through advanced AI technology. Specialising in Natural language Processing (NLP) and AI automation, Aveni provides tailored solutions that empower financial services businesses to achieve remarkable efficiency while maintaining the highest standards of service. Their flagship products, Aveni Detect and Aveni Assist, are purpose-built to streamline workflows, automate administrative tasks, and improve quality assurance processes, ultimately driving a productivity revolution in the industry.

Ocula Technologies offers advanced analytics with our sustainable growth platform enabling brands and retailers to outperform competitors.

Zenobe Energy manufactures and designs battery storage assets for electric bus operators, utilities, and industrial and commercial businesses. It offers grid-connected energy storage, frequency balancing services, second-life battery service, and charging services.

Coadjute is a real-time network to speed up property transactions.    A fast, secure, and standardised way for property businesses to connect and transact, Coadjute doesn’t replace existing systems, it connects them. Estate agents, conveyancers, mortgage brokers and lenders use Coadjute to connect with other people and systems they need to, whether buyers and sellers, other professionals, or sources of data and services.    By providing a secure, digital way to connect in real-time, the network cuts costs, improves security and efficiency, and opens the door to innovation.  The network utilises R3 Corda enterprise technology, a bank-grade form of Blockchain with particularly high levels of security, used by numerous financial institutions the world over. It is currently being rolled out to professionals across the UK, and will be available to consumers later in 2023.

Nempnett Pastures' mission is to produce high-quality, nutrient-dense food using high-welfare systems that develop soil and enrich the environment rather than deplete it.

Fnality International provides a digital cash system that uses blockchain technology to settle financial transactions. The company develops DLT-based wholesale payment systems in key jurisdictions, each overseen by its home central bank. It also offers banks a system for managing digital payments and supports the growing industry adoption of tokenized assets and marketplaces.

Enigio is a tech company offering innovative solutions to ensure the consistency, integrity, and traceability of digital information making data available only to those who should have access to it while protecting it from manipulation. Enigio creates solutions to secure information in real-time, using patented technical solutions and innovations to create an accessible product for creating digital original documents. Enigio aspires to be the global technology provider of a standardized solution for digitalized, authoritative original documents.

Fennech is a B2B Fintech that provides a new Platform as a Service – The Fennech Financial Framework (F3 ) – to meet the specific needs of Finance Directors, Controllers and Treasurers.They enable their clients to digitalise their finance function & automate the processing of any type of finance operation through the use of Fennech Digital Contracts, and by utilising recent advancements in Machine Learning & AI.

Bink develops a mobile application that links card payments to loyalty schemes. It allows consumers to register their debit or credit cards and link them to various loyalty schemes. They offer card linking through your app and website. Their payment-linked solution allows retailers to instantly recognize and reward customers when they shop, driving deeper insights and lasting connections.

Yoti is a digital identity technology company that makes it easier for people to prove their identity by verifying identities and trusted credentials both online and in person. It offers verification solutions all over the world, including identity verification, age verification, document eSigning, access management, and authentication, as well as leading facial age estimation.  Yoti's ID Verification Services are ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified, and its technical and organizational security processes are ISAE 3000 (SOC 2) Type 2 certified.

Caura is the payment platform for your car to manage parking, tolls, congestion charge, MOTs, vehicle tax, and insurance. Caura Protect is an FCA registered product with seven insurers, allowing drivers to purchase and manage motor insurance. Caura Maintain seamlessly manages MOTs and vehicle servicing.

Acin is a market-defining fintech company that is on a mission to make banks safer and transform the financial industry’s approach to non-financial risk, through the use of data.

Moneyhub helps companies reinvent how they interact with their customers. It is a data and payments company that develops ISO 27001-certified software for Open Banking, Open Finance, and Open Data applications. Its FCA-regulated Open Data platform enables companies to quickly and easily transform data into personalized digital experiences and initiate payments. Its APIs and fully customizable platform provide data aggregation, insights, and payment systems. As a result, clients have the consent-driven data and analytics they need to create super-personalized offers, products, and services. Hundreds of organizations, spanning finance to media and retail, rely on Moneyhub’s award-winning technology.

Thought Machine is a Fintech company that builds cloud-native technology to revolutionize core banking. Its mission is to cure one of the banking industry's primary problems: its reliance on outdated IT infrastructure. Nearly every bank is stuck on a legacy IT platform, which cripples their ability to innovate and give their customers the type of service they deserve. The company provides a solution to this is Vault: a complete retail banking platform that is capable of being configured easily to suit the needs of any bank. They have built Vault from the ground up as a cloud-native, microservice API architecture platform. Thought Machine has a deep culture of engineering excellence, and they believe it is this which delivers a solution compelling enough to engender a seismic shift in the banking industry.

Form3 delivers cloud-based connectivity, payment processing, clearing, and settlement services. It is a fully managed payment technology service combining a powerful AWS cloud processing platform, multiple-scheme payment gateways, and a fully managed 24x7 service model. Form3's powerful micro-services architecture and API's provide a single point of simple access to the full universe of payment schemes. Its clients include a wide range of regulated financial institutions, including leading banks, non-bank financial institutions, and fintech companies (payment institutions, e-money providers, and pre-paid card providers).  Form3 was founded in 2016 and is based in London, England.

Schuh Group Limited, through its subsidiaries, owns and operates retail stores for casual and athletic footwear.

CityFibre operates as an independent provider of fiber infrastructure in secondary cities. It develops a digital infrastructure that allows wholesale customers to offer broadband, ethernet, and 5G services to homes and businesses.

Welsh ICE has developed some genuinely innovative ways of nurturing start-up and early stage businesses and the Welsh Government is pleased to provide support, alongside the private and third sector, to new generation companies which create jobs

Delio’s technology, expertise and network power the private market strategies of the world’s most respected financial institutions. We offer uniquely configurable solutions that create, scale and streamline how firms connect their clients with the most desirable alternative investments.

Xercise4Less is a budget gym chain, offering the largest and newest gym facilities for the lowest membership price! We began with a gym at Xscape in Castleford in January 2009, and have now opened 9 gyms, with Newcastle-under-Lyme being our most recent, which opened May 2013. 2013 has been exciting year for Xercise4Less and has seen a number of exciting developments for us.  We have extensive expansion plans throughout the next three years, with the aim to open in excess of 100+ gyms throughout the UK. The Head Quarters for the Group is based in Leeds, which was opened in February 2012 and is one of the flagship sites for the brand, along with our Doncaster club.  Very recently, we have signed a major deal with Tesco to create a number of in-store gyms at a number of locations throughout the UK. The first in-store club will take up the 32,000 sq ft mezzanine floor at Tesco's Durham Road store in Stockton-on-Tees and will be the first of a series nationwide. Our Stockton North club has now gone into Pre-Sale and will be opening late October.

Startupbootcamp FinTech is a global family of industry-focused programs. They support early-stage tech founders to rapidly scale their companies by providing direct access to an international network of the most relevant mentors, partners, and investors. As each program focuses on an industry, they are able to provide an unmatched level of support to the startups selected for their programs.

Citylabs in Manchester is a new concept in high-specification flexible office and laboratory space, set right in the heart of Corridor Manchester, the city’s knowledge quarter.

GO Outdoors is a small company that set out on a big adventure more than 40 years ago. Sheffield's 'Camping & Caravanning Centre' first opened its doors in 1969, and soon became known simply as 'CCC' to locals. CCC quickly earned a strong reputation for excellent customer service and became a landmark within Yorkshire's outdoor community.

In 2002, the overuse of disposable plastics was becoming apparent and Father and Son, Sam and Barrie Turner spotted a gap in the market for reusable bags to minimise the plastic bag usage.   Barrie had spent much time in India researching the Jute fabric and its production process, so this felt the obvious choice to help achieve their aim; sustainable, high quality bags made of a strong, ethically produced alternative.

Lloyds Banking Group is a financial services group focused on retail and commercial customers, It is their role to help businesses and individuals while making a positive contribution to the communities in which they operate.

<div> Lloyds Banking Group (LSE: LLOY) is a leading UK-based financial services provider. Established in 1765 as Taylor and Lloyd, the company has grown through numerous mergers and acquisitions over its long history to become one of Britain's largest retail and commercial banks. Lloyds operates through three main segments: Retail, Commercial Banking, and Insurance, Pensions and Investments. Its Retail division offers a wide range of financial products and services to personal customers, including current accounts, savings, mortgages, credit cards, loans, and motor finance. The Commercial Banking arm serves businesses of all sizes, providing lending, transactional banking, working capital management, and risk management services. The Insurance, Pensions and Investments division offers insurance, investment and wealth management products. Lloyds' services are provided through several well-known brands including Lloyds Bank, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, and Scottish Widows. Lloyds reported a 41% surge in profit for 2023, driven by accounting changes and higher interest rates. The bank has been investing in digital transformation, partnering with Visa to launch innovative products and services for customers. Lloyds has also set sustainability targets, committing to provide GBP 10 billion in mortgage lending for energy-efficient properties by the end of 2024. The bank continues to rationalize its branch network, announcing plans to close 190 branches in 2024 and 102 in 2025 as more customers shift to digital banking. </div>

Lloyds Banking Group

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