Thought Machine is looking to expand its cloud-native banking technology with the launch of a cards and payments processing platform.
According to London-based Thought Machine, Vault Payments is a cloud-native platform. It’s designed for banks, of which the firm has quite a few connections.
Launching with card processing on the Mastercard network, Vault Payments has been built from scratch and can operate in real time.
Paul Taylor, Founder and CEO of Thought Machine, says: “Vault Payments is fully configurable by clients, giving them the power to process card and payment scheme messages freely – with execution logic they design themselves. This is a first for the payments industry – and the next foundational technology we have built, underpinned by our product excellence.”
It’s an interesting move and the fintech company is probably in a confident frame of mind – and has the money to ease any worries.
Last month, Thought Machine closed its Series D funding round, to double its valuation to $2.7 billion (£2.2 billion).
It has also been picking up a lot of deals around the world.
Finance app M1 recently selected Thought Machine’s core banking engine, Vault Core, to build and launch new products.
- Thought Machine gets fintech funding – read the news here
Other clients of Thought Machine include Intesa Sanpaolo, Lloyds, ING, SEB, Standard Chartered, mortgage & loan provider Together in the UK, HD Bank in Vietnam, Magyar Bankholding in Hungary, Mascoma Bank in the US, Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia and Danish company Lunar.
Jumping back to Vault Payments, Thought Machine explains that it represents payments as ISO20022 messages, and its rails-based configuration approach will support “any” payment type, card, or payment scheme as “compatibility expands”.
Vault Payments integrates with 3DS providers, card manufacturers and BIN sponsors, and clients can use this in a plug-and-play model. The platform can integrate “any financial product” with the Mastercard network through a payment routing mechanism.
It can be adopted as a standalone product and integrated into a variety of core banking systems, including Vault Core of course.
Naturally, any fintech firm wants to lock clients in – with an eternal embrace – and Thought Machine says clients of Vault Payments and Vault Core can also access its library of pre-built financial products. The latter includes buy now pay later products, e-wallets and Shariah-compliant banking products.
That’s a lot of positive talk, but with Thought Machine already having some notable banks as customers, it may feel this new step will be a fruitful move.
