Afin Bank partners with Vacuumlabs to launch a digital-first bank for Africans and foreign nationals in the UK
Afin Bank is a new bank supporting the UK’s most under-served but vital and growing communities. People that are doing important jobs, contributing to society, creating wealth and opportunities. Banking can be complex, so Afin Bank is making it simple. Our mission is to cut out the complicated stuff to deliver simple products and service excellence to make banking effortless.
Afin Bank is backed by parent company, WAICA Reinsurance Corporation Plc (WAICA Re), one of the largest reinsurance companies in Africa and in the top 100 reinsurers worldwide. WAICA Re has committed £60m to Afin Bank, demonstrating its belief in the UK financial services sector and Afin Bank’s goal of supporting an under-served customer base.
Vacuumlabs helped Afin Bank to build a next-generation digital bank from the ground up. The partnership is delivering a powerful banking platform tailored to the unique needs of underserved borrowers such as Africans and other foreign nationals living in the UK, offering financial services including mortgages and savings products.
Digital bank offering financial services including residential and buy-to-let mortgages and savings products
Built on Thought Machine Vault Core core banking technology
Launched in 2025
Access to traditional financial services like mortgages remains limited for many Africans and foreign nationals in the UK. People face systemic challenges due to their visa status or limited UK credit history. Other underserved customers include the self-employed and non-standard employment types, even if they are highly qualified professionals with strong income potential. It’s time they had a bank that understands their unique needs.
According to Monica Velasquez, CTO at Afin Bank, the idea for the bank was sparked by the lived experiences of over 1.5 million Africans in the UK, many of whom are excluded by rigid underwriting rules.
Many lenders have very restrictive criteria for foreign nationals, such as requiring borrowers to have indefinite right to reside in the UK, while others require a minimum residency period of at least 12 or 24 months. Afin Bank has a pragmatic approach to these clients, most of whom have well-paying jobs, so we will look at future income potential based on their qualifications and employment, along with robust creditworthiness and affordability assessments.
CTO at Afin Bank
The need is growing: mortgage searches for non-UK residents rose by 54% in 2023, yet the market continues to underserve this population. Afin Bank aims to change that.
In the UK, while some buy-to-let mortgage options exist for non-UK nationals, residential mortgage products tailored specifically to foreign nationals remain scarce. Afin Bank is addressing this gap by designing underwriting processes aligned to the real-life situations of its target customers that prioritizes pragmatic, timely decisions and a smoother experience for both borrowers and intermediaries.
Afin Bank partnered with Vacuumlabs to co-develop its banking platform and customer-facing app—built on Thought Machine’s Vault core banking engine. The result is a composable, intuitive, mobile-first platform built for scalability, flexibility, and speed.
Our choice of Vacuumlabs as a partner has enabled us to accelerate the build and launch of Afin Bank. Vacuumlabs’ expertise with Thought Machine Vault, its experience with multiple fintech services providers and its understanding of financial services customer experience has been invaluable. The level of collaboration is superb. Vacuumlabs is more than a partner, it is part of the Afin Bank team and continues to go above and beyond to ensure we are successful.
CEO at Afin Bank
Thought Machine Vault
React Native (iOS & Android)
Python, Kotlin
MACH (Microservices, APIs, Cloud, Headless)
ClearBank
SumSub, ComplyAdvantage
Snowflake
Temporal.io
AWS, Terraform, Docker, GitHub Actions
Auth0, AWS Cognito, Okta
Kafka, Spring Boot, PostgreSQL, GraphQL, Smart Contracts, Telemetry
Watch the webinar to hear directly from Monica Velasquez, CTO at Afin Bank and Marcel Klimo from Vacuumlabs. You’ll get firsthand insights into what it takes to turn a bold vision into a regulated financial institution.
“We assembled an experienced team which included a Project Manager, Solution Architect, Thought Machine & Smart Contract Architect and Engineers, multiple Senior Integration (Backend) Engineers, a Senior Frontend Engineer, as well as UX/UI Designers, Testers, and Data Engineers. Through continuous communication, we delivered iterations and technical solutions designed to support future growth.
“Working with Vacuumlabs we have accelerated Afin Bank’s software development lifecycle, which enables rapid iteration and continuous deployment with a robust, scalable infrastructure. This means we will be responsive to our customers’ changing needs.
“We have deployed a MACH architecture (microservices-first, APIs-first, Cloud-first, and Headless) and built an advanced technology stack with backend development in Python and Kotlin. Mobile development leveraging is via React Native and our data architecture leverages Snowflake.
“Underpinning this, with Vacuumlabs, we are utilising Temporal.io for orchestration to ensure durable execution of application code, allowing reliable and resilient workflow executions to power our customer journeys.”
— Monica Velasquez, CTO at Afin Bank
Afin Bank’s architecture enables fast time-to-market for new products and adaptability to changing user needs.
This partnership has laid the foundation for a bank purpose-built for an underserved demographic. With inclusive lending criteria, modern UX, and a scalable infrastructure, Afin Bank is poised to reshape access to financial services for underserved customers in the UK, including the African diaspora, other foreign nationals, as well borrowers with specific circumstances such as the self-employed and professionals.
Afin Bank offers residential and buy-to-let (BTL) mortgages for properties in England and Wales, as well as a range of FSCS-protected savings products for all UK savers. With the Vacuumlabs team, Afin has been able to integrate fintech services and infrastructure that can deliver mortgages to a wide range of borrowers who struggle to get the support they need from mainstream banks and lenders. We’re excited about what’s ahead.
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