Thought Machine, the cloud-native banking technology company, today announces it has partnered with Form3, the cloud-native account-to-account platform, to add FedNow, TCH RTP and SEPA Instant Credit Transfer connectivity to Thought Machine’s payment platform, Vault Payments. This partnership brings together two next-generation payment solutions, offering banks and financial institutions an end-to-end solution for seamless real-time payment processing.

Thought Machine’s Vault Payments is a cloud-native and API-enabled platform designed to simplify payment processing for banks. Its Universal Payment Engine processes all payment types and seamlessly integrates with any method, scheme or region globally, granting total payment orchestration control with unparalleled customisation of payment flows.

This partnership streamlines payment processing for banks and financial institutions by offering a comprehensive end-to-end payment processing solution. Through the integration of Vault Payments with Form3's account-to-account platform, clients can harness the powerful configuration capabilities of Thought Machine, in conjunction with Form3's direct connections to various payment schemes.

Both Thought Machine and Form3 have built their platforms using cloud-native technologies, guaranteeing reliability, scalability, performance and disaster recovery as core capabilities.

Additionally, both platforms natively support ISO 20022 messaging standards, eliminating the resource-intensive migration process for banks. ISO 20022's data richness and standardisation enables streamlined processing, enhanced analytics, improved regulatory reporting, and ultimately, superior customer experiences.

In 2022, global real-time transaction volumes soared by more than 60% yearly, reaching a record high. However, legacy systems can prevent banks and fintechs from fully leveraging new real-time schemes. Legacy systems can be difficult to integrate with real-time technologies and can lack compliance with ISO 20022 standards.

Thought Machine is entering the US payment market to meet the strong demand from financial institutions seeking modern, real-time payment systems. This demand has grown since the launch of FedNow in July 2023, which is set to revolutionise the US money transfer market.

Paul Taylor, founder and CEO of Thought Machine, commented: "We are delighted to partner with Form3, marking a significant step towards realising our vision of a truly Universal Payment Engine. As real-time payments become the new standard, our combined expertise ensures financial institutions are equipped with cutting-edge, cloud-native technologies. Together, we are shaping the future of payments."

Mike Walters, Form3 CEO, said: “We are very pleased to be working with Thought Machine, to provide leading banks and financial institutions with a fully-rounded, multi-cloud solution for their real-time payments needs. This partnership brings together two best-in-class cloud technology providers, working in a changing payments landscape, highlighted by the introduction of the FedNow Service and the new ISO 20022 messaging standards.”

Founded in 2014 by Paul Taylor, Thought Machine has gained global recognition for its cloud-native core banking platform, Vault Core. Global Tier 1 banks, including Standard Chartered, Lloyds Banking Group and Intesa Sanpaolo, and regional institutions such as Arvest Bank and Mascoma Bank, have all adopted and deployed Vault Core. Challenger banks and fintechs, including M1, C6 Bank and HMBradley, are clients of Thought Machine, using its technology to deliver pioneering innovation in the market.