OakNorth, a new UK challenger bank targeting small- and medium-sized businesses, has moved its entire core infrastructure to Amazon's Web Services cloud.
One of a host of new entrants to the UK banking market, OakNorth bills itself as a bank for entrepreneurs, providing loans of between £1m-£15m to small firms, although it also has regulatory approval to accept deposits and offer saving products.
Launched in September last year, the bank has lent over £120m to a number of businesses and developers across a variety of sectors. The company has been exploring the move to the cloud following the publication of new guidance by the Financial Conduct Authority in November.
The bank says it has been working closely with AWS and the FCA for six months on policies related to access to data, business continuity, as well as data protection and security provided by cloud systems.
OakNorth CEO and co-founder, Rishi Khosla, says the shift to the cloud will enable the startup to scale the business cost-effectively and efficiently.
“The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) proposed new guidance on cloud and other IT outsourcing last November in order to promote innovation and competition in the sector," he adds. "This development is proof of the regulator’s willingness to do that and will open up the opportunity for other financial institutions to follow suit.”