Nationwide Building Society deploys artificial intelligence to reduce back-end complexity

Nationwide Building is using artificial intelligence (AI) technology from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to reduce the complexity of back-end systems it introduces more digital products.

The building society is using the ignio neural automation system from TCS, initially for batch performance and capacity management. 

The software platform – which can be on-premise or in the cloud – automates IT and business processes. “It has the capacity to sense, think and act – as well as constantly learn and adapt to enterprises’ context,” said TCS.

 Mike Pighills, head of service integration and transition at Nationwide, said moving services on to a digital platform is a major priority and the AI platform will support this.

“In recent years, as our business has grown and new services have been introduced, our back-end systems have become ever more complex,” he said. “Ignio will help us simplify the management of these systems, giving us greater efficiency and control over critical aspects of our IT.”

Ignio can blueprint and self-learn an enterprise’s technology and operations context and help organisations make informed decisions quickly. It can also self-heal after operational incidents.

The system will first be deployed across Nationwide’s IT batch systems. “By allowing us to create a blueprint of our batch systems, ignio gives us the ability to quickly and easily model and predict the impact of business or technology-level changes and events on our batch systems and develop proactive plans accordingly,” said Pighills.

Large, long-established finance firms, such as the UK’s high street retail banks and building societies, have very complex IT systems underpinning their operations. These systems are sometimes 40 years old and have had layer upon layer of middleware and more connections with other systems added over the years. This is a headache for banks attempting to offer digital services to customers quickly.

One CIO at a UK challenger bank recently told Computer Weekly that artificial intelligence could solve complexity issues. For example, IPSoft’s AI customer service platform, known as Amelia, can read all instruction manuals and automated fixes and could possibly support legacy transformation.