CASE STUDY
One of the biggest and fastest-growing global fraud risks is Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud. With annual UK losses of almost £500 million, the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) introduced market-wide obligations to reimburse victims of APP fraud (referred to as Authorised Push Payment Reimbursement – APPR).
Pay.UK, as the operator of the Faster Payment Service (FPS) in the United Kingdom, has a specific mandate from the PSR to incorporate APPR reporting under its regulatory obligations. Formed in 2017, initially as the New Payment System Operator (NPSO), Pay.UK provides the digital networks that make payments secure, safe and simple for the UK’s banks and building societies, payment providers and their customers. Its purpose is to power payments, champion innovation and give the UK choice in how it pays.
Launched with the aim of consolidating the three national retail payment schemes – Bacs, Faster Payment and the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company – Pay.UK enables individuals and organisations in the UK to transfer money to others whenever they need to, quickly, safely and cheaply.
Recognising that technology plays a pivotal role in the monitoring and prevention of digital financial fraud – including APPR fraud – Pay.UK required a modern, scalable data and reporting architecture to provide highly advanced real-time analytics of the UK’s payment transfer networks and APPR.
As the hub of UK retail payment exchanges, this critical need would ensure Pay.UK’s operations remained consistent for the long-term with the level of daily usage and trust expected by both the public and commercial users alike.
After an extensive procurement process, the Advania team successfully secured the opportunity to work with Pay.UK to deliver a comprehensive and secure Azure tenant and data reporting. architecture that satisfied regulatory obligations and provided optimal functionality and security.
Services
Professional Services, Cyber, Managed Services, CSP Licensing
Industry
Financial services
Organisation size
250-500
Completion Date
December 2024
To comply with the regulatory mandate from the PSR, Pay.UK was seeking a robust, scalable and secure enterprise data storage, reporting and analytics solution.
Working with highly sensitive data, a critical component of Pay.UK’s needs was defence against proactive and constantly evolving cyber threats. A class-leading design that ensured a secure and reliable environment was a priority.
With a firm commitment to continually enhancing operations and guaranteeing the highest standards of data management, Pay.UK were keenly aware of the need to strive for consistently effective client delivery through enhanced data management processes and further improved solutions offering optimal real-time decision making.
Pay.UK saw Advania as the perfect partner to deliver improvement and growth on their existing operations, and to balance the maintenance of a business-as-usual model with the modernisation and innovation of a new source data platform to adapt to current threat realities.
Advania proposed and implemented a robust and secure Azure environment, based on Microsoft Cloud Scale Analytics. This flexible framework helps organisations create modern data platforms according to their specific needs.
With Advania’s expertise as a specialised Microsoft Data Partner, Microsoft UK provided direct financial support for the project through Microsoft’s Azure Innovate funding which allowed the work to start quickly and ensuring the budget for the project would be sufficient to ensure all outcomes could be met in the first phase.
For Pay.UK, the solution included the following key components:
The Advania team successfully delivered a robust and secure Azure tenant for Pay.UK, addressing the challenges of highly sensitive data, unstructured sources and a developing data platform.
By implementing a comprehensive data management landing zone, Purview Governance solution and Fabric Data Platform, Pay.UK now enjoys enhanced data quality, faster reporting, and upskilled personnel.
Advania’s own expertise ensured a seamless adoption of the new platform, providing ongoing support and enabling Pay.UK to focus on its core mission of ensuring victims of financial fraud are reimbursed by the PSPs.
Pay.UK now benefits from:
Being fully committed to a cloud-first strategy, Pay.UK was seeking to maximise its knowledge and investments that were already committed to Microsoft Cloud technologies and services.
Advania’s expertise, ability to meet all aspects of the brief and our existing partnership with Pay.UK, contributed to a successful, collaborative, structured engagement and on time delivery to meet regulatory deadlines.
Damola Da Silva
Head of Data & Analytics
Advania and Pay.UK have had a long-standing partnership commencing with the design, build and support of SharePoint Server in 2014 and, the migration into and adoption of Microsoft M365 in 2021.
As a regulated organisation working in the financial services sector, Pay.UK have long understood the importance of investing in technology solutions to meet evolving regulatory and stakeholder requirements.
Programmes currently being defined included,
Here’s how we made a difference for Pay.UK
Advania delivered a new scalable data analytics platform using Microsoft Fabric within budget commencing in July 2024 and production ready December 2024.
The opportunity was supported by Microsoft Innovate Funding and applications submitted by Advania.
Following build and deployment, Advania and Pay.UK contracted for a 3-year Managed Data Platform Service to ensure the solution remains optimised
Whether you’re facing similar challenges to peers across your industry, or you have a unique need for something different – speak to us to find out what we can do.
