Investec

Empowering innovation: Investec partners with Cloudflare to develop an integrated international open banking platform

Investec partners with private, institutional and corporate clients, offering international banking, investment and wealth management services in two principal markets, South Africa and the UK, as well as certain other countries. Their strong focus on tech innovation and open banking solutions is complemented by exceptional client service, enabling a “high tech, high touch” experience.

Challenge: Finding the right performance, security, and development partner for an international open banking platform

When Investec began their strategic expansion into digital banking channels, their primary concerns were securing and connecting their online services to an international user base.

“Having a secure digital security posture is paramount for us. As a financial services provider, it's critical that we ensure our clients’ peace of mind,” says Christopher Naidoo, Investec's Head of Digital IT Operations. “But, we were also looking for efficient ways to build out our digital strategy.”

Investec’s list of requirements grew alongside their portfolio of online services. Their focus shifted from content delivery to finding an innovative solution partner that could anticipate their development needs as they embraced open banking standards.

“Putting great services and solutions into our clients’ hands at pace was important to us,” says Naidoo. “Achieving that meant finding a partnership that enhanced our technology architecture and the way we provide our services by helping us move some of our solutions to the network edge.”

Cloudflare helps mitigate sophisticated security threats and secure user financial data

Investec partnered with Cloudflare after extensive research into multiple networking and security providers. The bank based their decision on an ongoing dialogue with the Cloudflare engineering teams and extensive proof of concept (POC) testing to ensure Cloudflare met their specific needs. Cloudflare rapidly became central to the bank's cloud development strategy.

“Our early interactions with Cloudflare and the deep POCs we conducted are one of the best investments Investec has made,” says Naidoo. “Cloudflare stood out for how easy its platform and services were to use — everything from onboarding to interacting via the Cloudflare portal or API was seamless.”

Cloudflare helps Investec anticipate and mitigate sophisticated attacks while strengthening their overall security posture. With Cloudflare Zero Trust, Investec can connect and secure their users and data while deflecting ransomware attempts, phishing, zero-day vulnerability exploits, and more. Cloudflare L7 security tools further secure Investec websites and online applications.

“In the current landscape, especially in the financial services industry, DDoS attacks and botnets could bring down our services, networks, and data centers,” explains Naidoo. “Cloudflare makes us proactive rather than reactive — we can take a long-term strategic approach to our security while remaining nimble and able to react to sudden threats. That keeps our clients’ money and information safe.”

Creating open banking applications and integrations on the Cloudflare Developer Platform

Investec uses Cloudflare to create banking opportunities for their clients and power many of its advanced online banking offerings and alternative integrations. This includes an industry first — Investec Programmable Banking. Programmable Banking offers Investec private banking and business clients access to their banking and transactional data and the power to craft individualised banking services.

In order to implement this solution for their global — and growing — client base, Investec needed a strong development partner. The Cloudflare development platform, Workers, helped them seamlessly create and deploy the new functionality, backed by the speed and scale of Cloudflare’s global network.

“The Cloudflare Developer Platform and Workers are central to our ability to provide user-programmable functionality. It is just one example of how we leverage Cloudflare capabilities to enhance our technology and deliver value to our clients.”

As Investec continue to develop cutting-edge banking tools, Naidoo sees the role of Cloudflare expanding within their development roadmap. Cloudflare Zero Trust will help secure access to company assets, while Workers’ Terraform integration will further streamline the deployment, configuration, and interoperability of the bank’s cloud-based applications.

“We want to be even more innovative and drive that concept of integration to allow each client’s creativity to determine new uses. With Cloudflare, we can create and secure a plug-and-play network that puts that type of functionality at their fingertips,” says Naidoo. “We can work in a better way to strategically move our business forward and more rapidly personalize our clients’ financial experience.”

For Investec, forming relationships that improve both performance and innovation is the key to success. Investec saw the same ethos in Cloudflare from their earliest interactions.

“Cloudflare mirrored our own vision to create a digital platform that integrated multiple services into a one-stop solution with a great user experience, great security, and great functionality,” says Naidoo. “They immediately understood where we wanted to go, and that is why our relationship has prospered. The real benefit of this partnership has come from the people.”