Case Study

Driving Rapid Growth at Hampshire Trust Bank

Backstory

Hampshire Trust Bank is a specialist bank, staffed by experts who help UK businesses realize their ambitions. Its Specialist Business Finance, Development Finance, and Specialist Mortgages divisions ensure businesses receive outstanding service, lasting relationships, integrity, and expertise.

The Challenge

Hampshire Trust Bank has made a big splash in the UK banking sector over the last few years. A key to its success has been using technology to deliver unrivaled service. For the bank’s next phase of growth, management followed this same playbook but took it a step further by launching a digital transformation initiative.

One of the main goals of the initiative was to achieve greater operational agility. Speed gave HTB an edge over larger incumbent banks. Another goal was to become more data-driven.

The bank’s CIO Russ Fitzgerald, who led the initiative, felt cloud technologies best supported each of these goals. As such, migrating data and processes to the cloud became a central part of HTB’s digital transformation efforts.

Against this cloud backdrop, the bank started working on an API enablement project. This entailed building applications and APIs to streamline internal processes and those affecting brokers and customers.

David Patterson, the Head of IT Infrastructure (now, Head of Delivery and Solutions), oversaw the project and recognized he had an integration dilemma. If developers on his team had to integrate systems through custom coding, it would slow the release of new APIs.

This touched off a search for a cloud integration solution.

The Solution

After evaluating more than 10 integration vendors, HTB chose the SnapLogic Intelligent Integration Platform.

Patterson, for his part, was drawn to SnapLogic’s low-code offering. This meant he didn’t have to hire developers for routine integration tasks. Moreover, the bank could use SnapLogic’s pre-built connectors (Snaps) and REST APIs to easily funnel data between any cloud and on-premises sources. Another selling point was that the AI Integration Assistant, SnapLogic’s built-in machine learning engine, could shorten development times for integration workflows dramatically.

“SnapLogic allows the developers on my team to spend the majority of their time on designing, building, and deploying new digital products,” said Patterson. “They are using their skills to fuel growth.”

SnapLogic proved so effective for API enablement that it caught the attention of the Business Intelligence (BI) team. The BI squad has since adopted SnapLogic for a cloud analytics and data warehousing project — another spoke in the digital transformation wheel. As the integration layer, SnapLogic will move disparate data into Snowflake, where analysts can then use Tableau for analytics. Now, instead of fretting about ETL operations, analysts can dig for data insights affecting revenue.

Business Results

On the whole, SnapLogic has enabled HTB to become more agile and data-driven. What’s more, the bank is launching digital initiatives faster. This, in turn, is enhancing the customer experience and making it easier for brokers to partner with the bank — all of which helps generate more business.

SnapLogic has also been instrumental in elevating the company’s analytics program. With the ability to easily integrate a wide range of data sources with Snowflake and Tableau, the BI team can perform richer, more comprehensive analytics. And the insights they uncover inform strategic decisions, product roadmaps, and other revenue-driving activities.

More fundamentally, SnapLogic has made digital transformation a reality.

From an architecture perspective, the platform paves a clear path for future cloud initiatives. More than that, it equips us to deliver unparalleled service to our customers and business partners,” said Fitzgerald.