Lloyds Bank, a British retail and commercial bank with branches across England and Wales with around £436 billion in assets, will be acquiring a minority stake in Form3, a cloud-powered payments technology provider.
The acquisition is part of Lloyds’ plans to upgrade its legacy payments platforms.
Through the partnership, Lloyds will use Form3’s technology to enhance its payments capabilities. The London headquartered bank will be offering support for improved data and new overlay services and will be focused on creating the basis for its response to the United Kingdom’s New Payment Architecture initiative.
Lloyds’ management noted that they’ll be acquiring a minority equity stake in Form3 during its next funding round which should be finalized by August 2020.
The equity investment from Llyods has come after its competitor Barclays Bank took part in two other investment rounds in Form3 during 2018.
Otto Benz, director for payments technical services at Lloyds Banking Group, stated:
“The potential of the cloud in payments is enormous and is firmly at the forefront of our strategy. We are committed to working with the most innovative technology providers, including Form3, to deliver a range of solutions that push the boundaries of what’s possible while reducing risk and providing customers with an improved digital experience.”
Like most large financial institutions, Llyods Bank appears to be focused on adopting the latest cloud technologies. In March 2020, the bank entered a five-year deal with Google Cloud. In January of this year, Lloyds teamed up with Microsoft in order to launch cloud-enabled productivity tools within Office 365.
In April 2020, Lloyds chose 12 promising insurance technology firms to take part in its accelerator program, Lloyds Lab.
