The West Brom Building Society has announced that it will work with Deloitte to help deploy the 10x Banking cloud-native meta core banking platform. The announcement coincided with the 250th anniversary of the first-ever Building Society in the UK. Ketley’s Building Society was founded in 1775 in Birmingham. The event is being celebrated at the Building Societies annual conference in Birmingham this week.
The West Brom Building Society was founded in 1849. It is now the eighth-largest building society in the UK. It has long recognised the need to keep up to date with its technology. This announcement will help the organisation deliver the next generation of digital services to customers. Once deployed, it hopes to give customers more choice, flexibility, and access to services that suit them.
Jonathan Westhoff, Chief Executive Officer of West Brom Building Society, said: “We chose to work with Deloitte and 10x because they understand what matters to us as a mutual – our customers. Working on this together is an exciting step forward in building the digital service and technology we want for the future.
“It’s based on the simple premise of helping our customers in the way that suits them best. As expectations grow and technology evolves, we want to make sure we’re right there with them, responsive and ready for what’s next in their financial lives – whether that’s buying their home or growing their savings for a more secure future.”
Digital Banking Future with Deloitte and 10X Banking
West Brom Building Society will adopt Converge by Deloitte. This platform, integrated with 10X Banking’s platform, provides a model for delivering a digital vision. Deloitte has developed the model with three pillars.
The first is a modern, composable Banking platform that is ready to deploy. It is customisable and saves thousands of person-hours of development work compared to historic solutions. In this case, West Brom Building Society has selected the 10X Banking platform. 10X Banking has a long history of working with Mutuals. Last year, it announced that it would assist Old Mutual with its expansion into Africa.
What is different about the 10X Banking approach is that it contains multiple modules in a composable architecture. That will enable West Brom to phase the project and build up its digital capabilities in a sensible way.
Components include Credit Cards, Checking Transactions, BNPL, Wallets, Instalment Plans, Loans, Mortgages, Savings/Deposits, Islamic Products and the ability to bring on the customer’s products. Its open SDK and API enable organisations to extend the platform, either with their systems or other third-party solutions.
The second pillar is the expertise that Deloitte brings to the table with its professional services. It has extensive experience delivering digital transformation for banks worldwide and methodologies honed through lessons learned.
The third pillar is the curated ecosystem of best-in-breed fintechs that has been tried and tested. It has developed pre-configured integrations, orchestrated to work for specific use cases, and all assembled in a way that lets you scale cost-effectively. The announcement shares little about what other solutions this transformation project will integrate with, but there will be some.
The project
The project will have multiple phases, including:
- Enhancing West Brom’s digital savings products
- Migrating existing accounts to Converge™ and the 10x platform,
- It will subsequently unlock greater value across its mortgage portfolio.
Jonathan Gray, UK Head of Banking Technology and Transformation at Deloitte, said: “Building societies play a prominent role in the UK savings and mortgage sector, combining financial stewardship with social purpose. We’re proud to be working with West Brom Building Society and 10x Banking to facilitate the modernisation of the society’s digital capability and core systems so that they can continue to deliver value for their 400,000+ members.”
Antony Jenkins, Founder and CEO of 10x Banking, said: “The West Brom’s transformation is a milestone for the sector. Our meta-core platform lets mutuals futureproof their operations while staying true to their purpose.
“As we approach the sector’s 250th anniversary, this partnership exemplifies how, with the right cloud-native core technology in place, heritage, social purpose and innovation can coexist and deliver world-class financial solutions.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean?
Over the next two days, West Brom Building Society, Deloitte and 10x Banking will be attending the 2025 Building Societies Annual Conference. Other Building Societies will be able to find out more about the project and how Deloitte and 10x Banking can help them digitise their offerings.
The announcement is only the beginning of a journey. No timescales for delivering the platform were made available, and the details of phasing were limited. What will customers think of the project, and when will they start to see a difference in services?
Also, will this transformation project help West Brom climb up the rankings of Building Societies, increase profitability, and increase customer satisfaction? Will West Brom be willing to help create a case study for the project when it is complete?
