Fintech platform developer, Vacuumlabs, is working with Afin Bank to build a new digital bank to provide financial services including mortgages and savings to Africans living and working in the UK.

Last week, Afin Bank was granted a banking licence Authorisation with Restrictions (AwR) and is planning to launch next year offering mortgages to Africans and other foreign nationals in the UK. This is an under-served group of borrowers who can struggle to get mortgages because of their visa status or lack of UK credit history.

Afin Bank has partnered with Vacuumlabs to develop a cutting-edge technology platform to support the operations of the bank and the customer-facing mobile digital banking application. The platform has been built with Thought Machine’s Vault as the core that integrates multiple services from the fintech ecosystem into a mobile application that provides a seamless, intuitive user experience designed specifically for Afin Bank’s customers.

“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,” said Jason Oakley, CEO, Afin Bank.

Vacuumlabs has provided an agile team of product designers, architects, software engineers, cloud infrastructure engineers and data engineers who combine their technology expertise with deep knowledge of digital banking, fintech and Thought Machine. 

“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,” said Monica Velasquez, Chief Technology Officer, Afin Bank.

She continued: “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.”

“It’s been a privilege to collaborate on delivering Afin Bank’s vision and we are excited that the technology approach taken will ensure that Afin Bank will be able to rapidly build and launch new innovative products and services for its customers as it grows,” said Tomas Masek, CEO, Vacuumlabs.

Afin Bank will initially offer residential and buy-to-let (BTL) mortgages to Africans living in England and Wales, as well as BTL mortgages for Africans based in Ghana, Sierra Leone and The Gambia overseas looking to invest in the UK property market.

The digital lender also expects to appeal to other foreign national borrowers in the UK, as well as other customers with non-standard lending needs, such as the self-employed. Afin Bank will also offer a range of FSCS protected savings products to savers with UK passports and people from Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Gambia resident in the UK.

Contact:
Adriana Fekete
email: adriana.feketeova@vacuumlabs.com

About Vacuumlabs

Vacuumlabs is a digital product development provider specialising in fintech and financial services, serving clients worldwide with a team of 250+ experts in engineering, product development, design, and business analysis. As a trusted Though Machine partner, Vacuumlabs collaborate closely to build and enhance products, leveraging cutting-edge technologies and frameworks for outstanding outcomes.

About Afin

Afin Bank is a new bank supporting one of the UK’s most under-served but vital and growing communities; people from Africa living and working in the UK. 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.