Nationwide Building Society is leveraging Red Hat as part of its application development framework to accelerate software releases and enhance system availability.
The prominent UK financial institution has implemented Red Hat OpenShift to integrate its business systems, following the success of an initial initiative aimed at gathering real-time data, known as Speed Layer. This project, which also utilizes Red Hat Enterprise Linux, was capable of processing over 100,000 data items per second, resulting in faster data availability for Nationwide’s Banking App.
Building on the momentum of the Speed Layer project, Nationwide opted to expand its integration efforts through the Business Intelligence Platform (BIP). The organization expressed the need for an “event-driven integration platform” that could effectively manage its system architecture, scale responsively, and connect with modern cloud-native applications.
In collaboration with Red Hat’s consulting team, Nationwide planned and developed its BIP using Red Hat OpenShift. The platform incorporates open-source technologies like Kafka for distributed event storage and stream processing, along with MongoDB for database management, ensuring continuous service availability during outages.
With the BIP in place, Nationwide has achieved the capability to handle 100 million calls daily, including 14 million external queries, while enabling one-time password authentication, interfacing with SAP systems, and supporting various other functions. The platform has maintained an impressive 99.999% service availability rate, improved processing speeds, and facilitated quicker upgrades.
BIP deployments are hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud and on-premise Red Hat Enterprise Linux, with plans to further migrate workloads to the cloud within the next year. During this time, a team of 50 dedicated to the BIP aims to automate more workflows and expand the platform’s capabilities to encompass all organizational functions.
Grant Valentine, head of BIP at Nationwide, emphasized the importance of being ready to meet unpredictable digital service demands. He stated, “As digital requirements continue to evolve—whether in terms of payment volume, banking app users, regulations, or system scalability—it is essential to prepare for unknown demands and channels. Our Business Integration Platform drives many of our strategic initiatives, and utilizing Red Hat OpenShift gives us the flexibility of a hybrid cloud solution, strong performance, and business agility, enabling us to deliver a faster and more convenient experience for our members.”
While many financial services firms were reducing spending during the global financial crisis of 2008, Nationwide took a different approach by significantly investing in IT. The institution embarked on a £1 billion project to modernize its technology infrastructure after years of under-investment, laying the groundwork for embracing emerging technologies. Today, the building society is harnessing fintech to revolutionize its operations, including a significant ongoing project to transition all payment processes to a cloud-based platform, which they describe as “generational tech transformation.”
