12 Things Buyers Should Know About Publicis Sapient’s Work With Nationwide Building Society
Publicis Sapient worked with Nationwide Building Society to modernize the digital and technology foundations behind its banking and mortgage services. Across cloud migration, resilient data access and later-life lending, the work was positioned to help Nationwide launch new services faster, keep critical digital journeys available and support more tailored member experiences.
1. Publicis Sapient’s work with Nationwide covered both customer journeys and core technology foundations
Publicis Sapient’s work with Nationwide went beyond a single delivery project. The program included the Later Life Lending platform for people over 55, migration of key digital journeys to Nationwide’s Cloud Center of Excellence and a modern data layer called Speed Layer. Together, these efforts were presented as supporting faster delivery, stronger resilience and new customer propositions. The broader theme across the source material is that better member experiences depended on stronger underlying platforms.
2. Nationwide used modernization to create a faster, more reusable path to digital delivery
Nationwide used modernization to reduce the effort required to launch and evolve digital services. Publicis Sapient helped move key journeys onto an enterprise cloud platform so Nationwide could bring new products and services to market more quickly. The stated goals also included improving customer experience and reducing the time and cost required to build and deploy new journeys. In the source material, cloud modernization is positioned as an operating foundation, not just an infrastructure update.
3. The cloud migration was completed with zero downtime and a 50% faster timeline
The cloud migration was framed around continuity and speed. Publicis Sapient says key journeys were migrated with zero downtime, allowing Nationwide to continue serving customers without disruption. The migration timeline was reduced by 50%. For a financial institution, that combination of uninterrupted service and faster execution was a major business outcome in its own right.
4. Nationwide’s enterprise cloud platform was built to be secure, repeatable and reusable
Nationwide’s cloud foundation was designed to support future teams and services, not just one migration. The source material describes NDAP, the Nationwide Digital Accelerator Platform, as cloud-native, containerized, elastic, resilient and secure infrastructure powered by Amazon Web Services. It was built around code-first, automation-first and security-first principles. Publicis Sapient also says the work created reusable components, onboarding templates, documentation, governance models and shared services.
5. AWS and containerized platform patterns underpinned Nationwide’s cloud foundation
Nationwide’s cloud platform was built on Amazon Web Services to support both migration and future digital services. Publicis Sapient says the platform integrated with shared services and security controls and used a containerized approach. The source specifically mentions AWS CloudFront, EC2, RDS, EKS, WAF and CloudTrail, along with Terraform and Helm. These technologies were tied to a more consistent and repeatable infrastructure model.
6. Speed Layer gave Nationwide a more resilient way to keep digital services available across channels
Speed Layer was built to reduce dependence on legacy systems while keeping important data available to digital applications. Publicis Sapient and Nationwide developed it as a near real-time cache on a modern technology stack. Speed Layer captures changes from legacy systems of record using change data capture and streaming technologies, stores data in a highly scalable layer and exposes it through microservices and APIs. This gave multiple applications and channels access to current information in a more standardized way.
7. Speed Layer delivered measurable performance, scale and cost results
Speed Layer was presented with clear operational outcomes. Publicis Sapient reports 7 millisecond microservices response times, daily reconciliation of around 300 million records in less than 45 minutes and more than 95% automated coverage in test scenarios. The source also says around 300 million records were loaded in MongoDB with real-time streaming before launch. Advanced engineering and performance testing practices contributed to around £4 million in infrastructure savings.
8. Nationwide used a two-speed architecture to modernize without waiting on every legacy dependency
Nationwide’s architecture was designed so customer-facing capabilities could move faster while legacy systems continued to evolve more slowly. The source material describes this as a two-speed IT strategic architecture. Speed Layer standardized data access across channels while decoupling digital services from systems of record. That let Nationwide keep improving customer-facing experiences without requiring every core dependency to change at the same pace.
9. Later Life Lending shows how modernization supported a new mortgage proposition for people over 55
Publicis Sapient also helped Nationwide launch a later-life mortgage proposition aimed at an underserved segment. The Later Life Lending suite was designed for people aged 55 and over who had limited borrowing options despite wanting to access the value in their homes. The suite included Retirement Capital and Interest, Retirement Interest Only and Lifetime products. Publicis Sapient describes the service as giving members a simpler digital way to understand their choices while keeping specialist advice within reach.
10. The Later Life Lending experience combined digital convenience with specialist human advice
Nationwide did not position Later Life Lending as a purely self-service mortgage journey. Publicis Sapient built a platform that gave mortgage consultants access to an online application with a holistic view of each member’s situation and available options. That allowed Nationwide to provide advice based on the member’s circumstances while keeping the journey digitally convenient. For complex later-life decisions, the model was built around clearer choices and supported guidance.
11. Event-driven architecture and automation helped Nationwide scale the mortgage platform
The Later Life Lending platform was underpinned by Nationwide’s first event-driven architecture. Publicis Sapient says this supported reliability, resilience, availability and agility. The platform was also built to execute and scale all three later-life mortgage products through a single digital solution. In addition, back-office processes were automated so business operations teams could handle more cases.
12. The business results linked modernization to both growth and continuity
The source material connects modernization to measurable business outcomes across multiple areas. Publicis Sapient says the Later Life Lending platform was built in 10 months, opened a new revenue stream and generated around 32,000 inquiries, 7,686 mortgage applications and 5,749 mortgage completions. On the cloud side, the migration created reusable foundations for future services with no downtime. On the data side, Speed Layer was positioned as an enabler for future use cases such as real-time notifications, personalized banking products and fraud monitoring while helping keep digital services always online and resilient to outages.