Nationwide forges closer ties with AWS in cloud transformation push
The building society is “consolidating and modernizing” cloud infrastructure and focusing heavily on internal skills development
Nationwide Building Society and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have announced a new agreement aimed at driving digital service offerings for the high street lender.
Building on an existing partnership between the two organizations, Nationwide said the new deal will help deliver “more personalized experiences” for the its 17 million customers.
The move by Nationwide comes amidst a long-running digitization scheme at the building society. In 2024, for example, the company completed an overhaul of its IT infrastructure as part of a shift to Amazon EKS.
Similarly, just this month, the organization announced plans for a new AI-powered transaction analytics feature for consumers.
Looking ahead, Nationwide plans to further “consolidate” workloads on AWS, modernize services for customers, and equip staff with new AI tools and capabilities.
"As we continue our digital transformation, we need cloud technology that can support our ambition to deliver better customer experiences, while keeping safety and security at the forefront,” said Suresh Viswanathan, group chief operating officer at Nationwide.
“With AWS, we can better support our frontline colleagues to help improve member experience and deliver better outcomes for over 17 million customers."
Nationwide already uses AWS’ cloud-based contact center platform, Amazon Connect, when dealing with customer support enquiries. This gives customer support teams access to a range of AI-powered tools that help drive operational efficiency and staff productivity.
The building society has used Amazon Connect to underpin new customer services, including the recently-launched Call Checker tool. This helps customers establish whether they are speaking to a legitimate Nationwide worker to crack down on scam calls.
"By consolidating and modernizing their workloads on AWS, Nationwide can accelerate innovation, enhance operational resilience, and deliver the digital experiences their members expect—all while maintaining the security and compliance standards that are paramount in financial services,” said Alison Kay, VP and Managing Director of AWS UKI.
Nationwide targets AI, cloud training for staff
As part of the agreement, AWS revealed it will work closely with Nationwide to bolster workforce skill capabilities. This will include access to AWS training schemes to equip them with cloud and AI-related skills.
“This will support Nationwide’s ability to adopt AWS technologies for the benefit of its customers and colleagues,” the hyperscaler said in a statement.
Training schemes running parallel to digital transformation projects have become a recurring theme in announcements such as these.
As ITPro reported last week, Lloyds Banking Group has embarked on a company-wide AI training program as the company looks to integrate the technology across core operations.
The financial services provider said it plans to train 100% of its employees in AI skills by the end of this year alone, enabling staff to easily adopt these tools and improve customer service capabilities.
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