NatWest Boxed launches seamless embedded finance platform
Supermarket savings accounts or loans tied to motoring memberships may appear simple to consumers, but the underlying technology for embedded finance is far more detailed. It demands a secure, resilient, and adaptable banking infrastructure capable of meeting diverse business requirements without compromising availability or regulatory adherence.
NatWest Boxed, part of the NatWest Group, is tackling this complexity with its proprietary embedded finance platform. The service allows major UK brands—including The AA, Saga, and Sainsbury’s—to embed financial products directly into customer interactions. So far, the platform has introduced instant-access savings, unsecured lending, and point-of-sale financing, enabling customers to access credit during purchases.
Constructing a platform from the ground up
Development of NatWest Boxed’s platform began around 2022, with an initial partnership involving a major European technology provider to manage the embedded finance orchestration layer. While NatWest maintained control of its core banking engine, this collaboration enabled the company to launch its first products simultaneously with in-house development.
The migration required a large-scale transition while keeping services operational. Asif Siddiqui, Director of Engineering for Banking as a Service at NatWest Boxed, oversaw the effort. With two decades of experience in high-transaction systems at companies like Amazon and Emirates Airline, he applied that expertise to banking infrastructure, ensuring the new platform could scale without disrupting operations.
Rather than a single, high-risk overhaul, the team implemented a phased approach. They divided the platform into micro-domains, distinct areas such as identity management or account onboarding, each managed by specialized teams. An orchestration layer then routed requests between legacy and new systems, allowing gradual migration without full downtime.
The process also required maintaining existing customer data while correctly onboarding new users. To address this, NatWest Boxed developed a real-time synchronization system to keep both platforms aligned until full transition. The outcome was a seamless migration with zero customer downtime and minimal post-migration complications.
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Siddiqui highlighted the necessity for precision in a regulated environment: “We cannot afford to lose a single data point or trigger a huge amount of downtime while we migrate.”
Balancing speed with reliability
NatWest Boxed’s engineering approach prioritizes efficiency without compromising stability. The platform operates under cloud-native and API-first principles, with continuous integration and deployment enabling incremental, tested updates rather than large, risky changes.
Each micro-domain adheres to strict data and API contracts, allowing teams to innovate independently without requiring full platform retesting. This structure supports more frequent releases, as teams validate their work continuously.
The platform has earned ISO 27001 certification for information security and meets elite DORA metrics, which assess software delivery performance, deployment frequency, and recovery from failure. Siddiqui noted that while balancing speed and resilience presents challenges, the results, high operational efficiency and productivity, prove its effectiveness.
The platform’s adaptability is already proving vital. Brands like The AA and Saga use it to deliver customized financial products, such as savings with membership-linked interest rates or services tailored to customers over 50. Generic solutions no longer suffice; each partner requires bespoke branding, authentication, and loyalty integrations.
