Paul Walton, Managing Director – UK Lending, SBS
Forever 30 years, SBS have supported mortgage and savings operations for banks and building societies in Great Britain. During this time, the original creation and service engine has been expanded to include a front-end consumer savings portal, a broker portal, and a mobile app offering.
Let’s address the elephant in the room. Many leading software vendors that have been serving customers for decades can be considered outdated, but SBS is anything but outdated.
During the fifth and final episode of the SBS Summit in October, SBS presented the progress made in its technology worldwide, including its vision for the use of AI in the future of banking software. Finextra noticed this after the event SBS had shaken off the legacy label and had positioned itself at the forefront of fintech.
The UK market is a microcosm of the banking world and in many ways it is carving its own path towards the future of the market. Thanks to long-standing, robust customer partnerships, SBS knows the market is looking for ways to go digital while remaining human.
Progressive thinking
January 1, 2030 may seem far away, but new regulations are creeping in quickly. Basel 3.1 is expected to result in an increase in capital requirements for large companies, including large building societies, of around 3%.
The regulations are intended to keep consumers’ money safer and result in fewer government bailouts or the collapse of financial institutions. These regulations could mean lenders can save more of their money instead of giving it to shareholders, looking for money through investors, or lending less money. Add the reduced one cash free allowance in ISAs from £20,000 to £12,000which could potentially impact savings accounts, industry leaders will look for creative ways to save money to achieve this without impacting the customer experience and remain competitive.
One way building societies and smaller banks can compete with these market leaders is through digital transformation. Understanding some of the real challenges facing UK organizations is something SBS is dealing with prioritized in the latest MSS7 product launch.
Now we’ll look at just two forms of new functionality that SBS has made available to lead market innovations and help UK organizations modernize their operations.
Open banking
Banks, financial institutions, fintechs and tech services providers have come together to build open banking ecosystems within a collaborative community to bring new products and services to Britain. Open banking payments allow customers to authorize payments using their existing banking information, enabling instant transfers that reduce errors and result in faster transactions. These payments also reduce card processing costs, resulting in cost savings for both consumers and lenders.
According to one FCA Whitepaper October 2025, Earlier this year, more than 23 million one-off payments were successfully processed via Open Banking. The total number of active users was approximately 13.3 million. These transactions are modest compared to digital wallets and contactless cards, but open banking is showing steady growth.
Open banking payments are an attractive alternative for organizations such as building societies who are keen to grow their savings accounts but are impacted by card fees associated with deposit transactions. Adoption grows from 1 in 17 in March 2021 to approx 1 in 5 people and small businesses in the UK that are active in open banking from March 2025, organizations must act quickly to compete with this new trend that is quickly becoming the norm.
Product switch
Estimates from mid-2025 show that 1.6 million fixed-term mortgages in Britain would mature by the end of the year.
Complex mortgage structures, such as multiple sub-accounts with different rates or conditions, previously posed a burden for financial organizations to switch to a new deal. The latest mortgage switching processes allow consumers to experience a more seamless journey, avoiding long wait times, high costs and complex processes.
As brokers and consumers expect the ability to conduct product switching activities online, lenders are looking for solutions. Some existing SBS customers estimate that they are currently allocated between 4 and 5 FTE to manually process mortgage transfers. In addition, approximately 60% of their mortgage portfolio has more than 2 sub-accounts.
By implementing this product switching solution, lenders can expect a return on their investment in the first year by increasing the speed of mortgage switching, reducing customer churn, reallocating staff to tasks that deliver greater value, reducing human error and saving money by reducing manual processing.
Conclusion
SBS has been supporting UK customers for over 30 years, but this functionality is not that of an older provider. 25% of UK mortgages are currently managed via an SBS platform and more than 50% of UK building societies use SBS solutions to manage their mortgage and savings activities.
We’re not stopping here. The best is yet to come.
To learn more about these topics and how SBS helps organizations reduce customer onboarding, proactively enforce regulations, digitize branch operations and more: Please contact a member of our expert team at SBS.
Paul Walton, Managing Director – UK Lending, SBS