UK digital bank Chetwood Financial (Chetwood) has today announced the acquisition of core banking provider Yobota to extend Chetwood’s Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) capabilities. 

Founded alongside the bank in 2016 and developed as a separate entity, Yobota is a London-based technology company that has built a fast, flexible, cloud-native core banking platform. The platform allows companies to create and run innovative financial products, and manage them independently.

The acquisition will create a more collaborative and compelling BaaS proposition for Chetwood as it continues to grow its customer base and enable businesses to develop their own financial offerings, such as lending and payment services, using its regulated infrastructure.  

Following the acquisition, Yobota will continue to deliver the core banking system (CBS), on which businesses can run fully compliant financial services whilst leveraging Chetwood’s banking licence. The combined strength of the businesses will increase operational efficiencies and facilitate the delivery of a full end-to-end BaaS offering with greater ease. 

In particular, non financial services businesses will be able to embed finance without needing to develop credit and pricing capabilities, alongside proposition, decisioning, modelling and operations as optional services. This allows businesses to launch financial services products with minimal upfront investment and low running costs due to their cloud based technology. 

As part of the bank’s robust multi-brand strategy, Yobota will continue to operate as a separate brand under the Chetwood umbrella, with Yobota’s current partners and customers unaffected by the transition. They will maintain strict client confidentiality, with sensitive information and IP protected. 

Chetwood will continue to operate its existing consumer-facing products: Wave, LiveLend, SmartSave and BetterBorrow. 

Yobota CEO and founder Ammar Akhtar is stepping down to pursue new challenges after almost six years. Existing Yobota management will continue to run the company and ensure clients continue to experience excellent service uninterrupted. 

Andy Mielczarek, CEO and Founder of Chetwood said: 

“Chetwood and Yobota have common shareholders and shared purpose, and there is pre-established trust from knowing and working together. The acquisition is set to bring greater value to investors as well as strengthen our existing BaaS proposition, helping clients create better end-to-end journeys for their customers by handling both the regulatory and technological complexities involved in embedding financial services into existing propositions. Clients of both firms will benefit from our complementary offerings that will enable responsive, dynamic products and solutions not yet seen in the industry. 

”It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to Ammar, whose energy, experience and creativity were essential to launching Chetwood and Yobota, as well as driving many of our subsequent successes. He is a founder across our group and has always propelled us forward with enthusiasm and dedication. He will be missed and we wish him all the best in his next chapter.”

Ammar Akhtar, CEO of Yobota, said: 

"These last 6 years have been an amazing journey. We've built a fantastic banking core and there is an extremely talented team in place to take it forward. I'm very grateful for all the opportunities and experiences I've had during this time and incredibly proud of the work we've done together. I look forward to following the successes of our current and future clients as I move on to my next challenge." 

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.