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PIP WHITE: Hi, everyone.
Welcome to this virtual fireside chat with Google Cloud.
I'm Pip White, managing director of the UK and Ireland
for Google Cloud, and I'm really excited to be speaking today
with Rana Bhattacharya, who's the CTO from our customer, Atom
Bank.
So for those that are not aware of Atom Bank, Rana,
please could you share a little about the company and your role
there?
RANA BHATTACHARYA: Thanks, Pip.
So my name's Rana Bhattacharya.
I'm the chief technology officer for Atom Bank.
I've been at Atom Bank for about four years.
And I was really brought on to effectively modernize the bank.
My remit covers areas such as architecture, engineering, QA
and testing, live service, security and data.
In terms of a bank, we were launched in April 2016
to the public, and we were launched
as the first mobile-only bank in the UK.
At the same time, we were the first bank
to launch with biometrics.
And over time we've got to, you know, a good position
where we're $2 billion on both sides of balance
sheets in terms of deposits and lending.
PIP WHITE: Sounds like you've been on a rocket ship ride.
And it would be great to know a bit more, Rana,
about how Atom Bank have been using
Google Cloud on that journey.
RANA BHATTACHARYA: Sure.
So when the bank was formed in April 2016,
we were using third party data centers.
And from that point, we felt, in terms of pace,
we really wanted to adopt a cloud.
And we went through a process to effectively select
a cloud partner, and we selected Google Cloud.
With that, we've been incrementally
moving our workloads from data centers over to Google Cloud,
as well as effectively re-architecting
and re-platforming the bank.
PIP WHITE: I also understand that you recently completed
a large modernization project.
I'd love to learn a bit more about that.
You know, what that involves and how you undertook that project.
RANA BHATTACHARYA: So we've effectively
rebuilt the whole bank.
And we've rebuilt it to be a cloud-native solution running
on Google Cloud.
So we embarked on a journey where we basically
incrementally re-architected--
call it our new bank--
and had it running alongside our old banking stack.
And in September 2020, we basically--
not only did we launch our new banking stack,
we also launched a new product, the [INAUDIBLE]..
And the commentary we got from our customers
on the back of that launch was phenomenal,
in terms of the consensus, in terms of sentiment.
It was really, you know, easy, fast, secure, reliable.
Those were the kind of sentiment the customer was offering
on the back of a transformational launch
of this new product.
And at the same time, within this transformation journey,
we increased the customer satisfaction scores.
So before we started this transformation, for example,
we were below three star for the App Store rating and Play Store
rating.
Now we're, you know, at 4.7 for the App Store, roughly 4.3,
4.4 for the Play Store, and 4.7 in [INAUDIBLE]..
So we have very high customer scores.
And, you know, predominantly we've
re-architected the bank, where we've
changed some of our customer journeys
to take some of the friction out in terms of onboarding
and acquiring new clients.
PIP WHITE: OK, great.
Thank you for that.
And what would you say have been the most impressive benefits
that you're seeing by having migrated to Google Cloud?
RANA BHATTACHARYA: So as we moved on to the Google Cloud,
I think the combination of Google Cloud
plus using DevOps gives you a lot of reliability and pace.
I'll give you an example.
So historically, if you wanted to create
a new environment, a non-production environment,
in the data centers, we were quoted 42 weeks, for example.
But with Google Cloud and leveraging DevOps,
we could create a repeatable process
where we could spin up a brand new non-production
environment in a week.
And when you have that sort of ability,
it removes some of the business barriers for doing change.
So effectively you don't need to worry
about how many environments you have, you know,
because you can actually spin them up.
And also you can spin them down when you're done with them.
So pace of delivering environments was something
that, you know, I think is very impressive.
And the other element is there's a big focus
really around resilience, especially within banking.
We've got a level of monitoring and control
by virtue of we owning the stack that sits on Google Cloud.
And so we can basically configure our own kind
of monitoring and alerting.
And we've get more insight into how the bank is operating
and the health of the stack, where we can take action
when we see something not quite working before there's actually
any detriment to the customer.
So we've significantly improved our ability
to look after our stack and improve
the experience for our customers by moving onto Google Cloud.
PIP WHITE: Yeah, yeah.
Thank you for sharing that.
And what made you choose us?
What made you choose Google Cloud?
RANA BHATTACHARYA: We were looking for a partner.
And, you know, reflecting back now on our journey with Google
Cloud, we did have a partner on our side
where basically, you know, if we had a problem, it wasn't about,
you know, oh, you can't get that through the contract.
Someone from Google came to help us get over our problem
and keep our progress in that transformation journey going.
And that was very refreshing, especially
in terms of when you actually talk about partners.
Because I've got a phrase around suppliers and partners.
And with partners, you have a relationship
that goes above and beyond the contract.
And that's what we've got with Google Cloud.
PIP WHITE: Yeah.
And we're obviously very grateful for that, also.
Did you have any doubts when you were considering Cloud?
And how did we at Google Cloud help you manage these concerns?
RANA BHATTACHARYA: So from my perspective,
I was very keen to move on to the cloud
and work with Google Cloud.
Obviously I had to go through a process of, let's call it,
engaging my colleagues within the bank,
engaging with board members and engaging with the regulators.
We worked with a unit within Google Cloud called GTrust.
And GTrust gave us a lot of information around the security
models that are being used by Google Cloud and also
the types of specifications that Google have around security
and auditing, et cetera.
As well as the fact that GTrust was
engaging with the regulators around the world.
And this gave us a view of information
that I use to engage with my colleagues
within the bank, the board, and the regulators
to make sure they have confidence
that we were doing the right thing by moving on
to Google Cloud.
PIP WHITE: Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
So as a digital first company, we
could assume as listeners here that Atom Bank would
have been better prepared to adapt during the pandemic
that we've all been facing throughout this year.
Has that been the case?
And what have been some of the things that have surprised you
along the way during this time?
RANA BHATTACHARYA: OK, so quite often
when you talk about this topic, a lot of organizations
talk about collaboration suites.
But in reality, you're going to need to have--
and especially for a bank, you need
to have a number of business applications
available to your employees.
So in about two weeks we had a core home working solution
created on the cloud, which allowed
us to move our employees safely home
so they could support our customers.
And not just using collaboration suites, but also
actual business applications which could be
used safely at home by our employees.
PIP WHITE: OK, thank you.
So obviously you've been pretty busy,
Rana, but what's next in your journey
to building a digital first bank?
How do you drive growth in your market
and how do you stay continually ahead of technology trends?
RANA BHATTACHARYA: We have been on a journey
to launch a brand-new banking stack on Google Cloud.
And we've launched our first product on it.
Right now, in fact, we've even launched our second product
on this new banking stack, in terms
of we are migrating customers from our old banking
stack over to the new one.
So we've launched the Fixed Rate Saver proposition.
We are going to effectively consolidate on our stack
and use this stack to effectively build out
a broader set of products and services in time.
And that's kind of really the focus
right now, to make sure we move away from our old stack
and, you know, cut the cord so to speak.
In terms of future technology, I think
we've gone through a massive transformation journey,
so I think we're going to obviously exercise
the new platform, but we'll take a breath
before we kind of start loading on lots
of new, beautiful technology.
PIP WHITE: Yeah.
A slightly different question now,
but I think hopefully an important one
from your perspective as well as mine.
And you're a relatively young company
and you have the ability to sort of shape
and influence the culture of that company as you grow.
And what role do you see DEI playing as Atom Bank continues
on that growth journey?
RANA BHATTACHARYA: Diversity, Equality, Inclusion
is massively important to the bank.
We want to create an organization that
has a true sense of belonging to encourage
underrepresented groups to join us.
We're fighting for technical talent across the board.
Not just Atom, but other organizations as well.
So it's very important for us to basically embrace
all who want to join the bank.
We don't want to have barriers to this.
We want basically to have everyone
who would like to join the bank to join the bank.
Because you know what?
Our customers, we want them to be diverse,
and our workforce needs to be diverse as well.
PIP WHITE: Well, Rana, thank you so much for joining me today.
It's been so interesting to hear how Atom Bank are using Cloud
technology to create a great customer experience
and obviously drive innovation in the banking space.
I look forward to following the Atom journey in the future
and to our continued partnership, of course.
So thank you so much for taking the time
to speak with us today.
RANA BHATTACHARYA: Well, Pip, thank you
for the opportunity to tell you about the Atom Bank journey
and also, frankly, for Google Cloud support
as well on this journey.
Thank you very much.