Microsoft and BankSight Collaborate with Judo Capital to Deliver Innovative Small Business Lending Platform
Launch of Australia’s first true challenger bank, purpose-built to become a trusted ally and partner to Australia’s small and medium-sized businesses
Judo Capital is founded on the belief that the financing skills needed by the SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) community have been lost to increasingly centralized functions and cookie-cutter lending policies.
Judo’s mission is to put experienced and empowered relationship-focused lenders back in customers’ premises, going against the industry trend; putting the customer experience first and foremost by ensuring Judo’s team can make credit decisions on the quality of the business, not just the quality of the security.
To do so, Judo looked to Microsoft and BankSight to deliver both the platform and application, which puts the customer at the center of Judo’s lending process. Judo put BankSight and Microsoft at the heart of its services infrastructure over the course of 2017 and early 2018, to develop an entirely cloud-based API service fabric and customer-centric application ecosystem.
Alex Twigg, Co-Founder of Judo, said: “With Judo being a greenfield, we had the opportunity not only to build from scratch, but to flip the banking problem on its head. We took on the challenge of creating a neo-bank – focused entirely on the potential of our customers – which could support artisan-lending at scale, and eliminate the quality and time risks associated with backoffice handoffs.”
BankSight’s role in Judo is to provide an intelligent and intuitive banking CRM and Deal Builder solution for use both by Judo lenders and Judo’s partner brokers. BankSight helps Judo Capital lenders and brokers manage the entire lifecycle of a small business opportunity, with a singular focus on providing the customer with a lending decision within a maximum of five days; from initial lead, to application capture, to decision including comprehensive insights, reporting and notifications along the way.
BankSight is built entirely on the Microsoft Business Applications platform including Azure and utilizes compute, storage, analytics, security and operations services, as well as Office 365 and Dynamics 365. Microsoft Azure Active Directory is at the core of Judo’s solution, helping Judo to manage authentication, identity and security across its lenders, brokers and small business customers.
Alex Twigg, Co-Founder of Judo, added: “Starting with a blank sheet of paper is a fabulous opportunity, but it’s not easy… wanting to flip an entrenched industry model on its head makes it that much more difficult again. We were driven to find like-minded technology partners who wanted to go on the journey with us and make a difference. The BankSight team understood it from day one and the Microsoft platform worked well, which freed us up to focus all our efforts on creating a customer-centric business, rather than the ins and outs of integrating and securing data and technology.”
Through the power of Microsoft Azure, Judo Capital is creating a robust SME lending infrastructure, enabling it to overcome substantial barriers to entry, both in a fraction of the time it would traditionally take and at minimum cost.
Duncan Taylor, FSI Director of Microsoft Australia, said: “By embracing Microsoft’s cloud services, Judo Capital and BankSight are rewriting the rules of how financial services is delivered in Australia. Furthermore, utilizing Microsoft’s Australia data centers, Judo Capital can be confident that it has access to cloud services that offer world-class reliability and performance, as well as assurance that its data residency and regulatory requirements are fulfilled.”
Judo’s eye is on the future, and the team have built a technology platform that opens up the possibilities of open banking legislation. By viewing everything as a service Judo has liberated itself from the legacy constraints of siloed systems, to build an entirely cloud-based API service fabric that can be ‘bolted’ together. Each service contributes to the strength and capability of the whole Judo ecosystem, creating truly dynamic customer-centric experiences.
Brian Stone, CEO and Co-Founder of BankSight, said: “We’ve been delighted to work closely with Judo Capital and its founding team over the past 18 months. They have a vision and strategy to deliver a better, differentiated, lending experience to small businesses in Australia and they’re able to translate that vision into real results. Building on the Microsoft Business Applications Platform from the start has allowed our developers to move quickly and with great confidence.”
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