Thought Machine wins major core banking deal with JP Morgan Chase

Thought Machine has secured a deal with major US bank JP Morgan Chase for the deployment of its flagship core banking system, Vault.

Thought Machine founder and CEO, Paul Taylor

JP Morgan’s Chase retail bank will now transition to Vault in the US, while Thought Machine is also reportedly involved in the launch of Chase in the UK.

The deal is another major step for the UK-based vendor in its quest to break into the US as a market. Last week it signed another US client in Arkansas-based Arvest Bank.

Speaking to American Banker, the companies declined to disclose how much JP Morgan Chase will pay for the upgrade and how long the project will take.

Rohan Amin, Chase chief innovation officer, says the partnership gives the bank an opportunity to “take full advantage of the cloud”.

He adds: “Increasingly, customers want to be able to move between those in a more fluid way, and having a new core banking system allows us to think about the world in that way aligns with how we think about the customer experience.”

Chase has separate systems for deposits and loans, but is hoping to knit these disparate operations together in the future.

Thought Machine will be taking on the running of more than 57 million active customers, and Chase is hoping the vendor can do so without disruptions or outages. The bank reportedly tested the Vault core system through the simulation of large traffic volumes.

“JP Morgan Chase represents one of the most ambitious, powerful financial institutions in the world,” says Paul Taylor, Thought Machine’s CEO.

He adds their joint deal shows that cloud-native core banking systems are “the future for financial services”.

“We’ve always been believers in the cloud,” continues Taylor. “I worked at Google and many of the senior engineers worked at Google. We will always believe that the cloud is the long-term answer to many problems.”

Thought Machine is also expected to announce a new funding round worth $150 million, which would push its valuation into unicorn territory.

The vendor has earmarked the majority of its prior funding towards geographic expansion, and now has major offices in North America, Asia, and Europe.