Neobank Moneybase makes money simple with Microsoft Azure

“Life’s full of mysteries. Your money shouldn’t be one of them,”— these words are the guiding motto of Moneybase, a neobank that offers a simple and highly secure way to manage finances and investments from a single platform. Launched in 2022, the company emerged from the longstanding Calamatta Cuschieri Group, which has been a fixture in Malta’s financial sector since 1971. With a rich history of providing financial and investment advice, Calamatta Cuschieri launched Malta’s first online trading platform for diverse financial instruments like funds, bonds, stocks, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in 2011. Later on in 2018, it reached a crossroads - to continue enhancing its legacy core banking systems or to radically innovate. Alan Cuschieri, Chief Executive Officer at Moneybase, recalls, "We decided not to carry the legacy. We needed scalability, business continuity, security, and geographical redundancy. So, we chose to build on Azure a new cloud-first core banking system that supports complete wealth and payment solutions."

That’s when Moneybase was born. Its goal was to create an innovative customer experience where technology complements every user touchpoint. “We strive to seamlessly blend the digital and physical to offer the best customer experience,” says Cuschieri.

Choosing the right partner

A crucial prerequisite of this mission was choosing a robust, highly secure and scalable technology foundation—Microsoft Azure. “We built a new core banking system from scratch, and it was designed with Azure in mind from the outset,” recalls Cuschieri. “This gave us great performance and flexibility in what the system can do, which is one of our advantages.”

Moneybase's decision to partner with Microsoft was rooted in Microsoft's well-established, on-the-ground support in Malta. Cuschieri remembers, "When I was a student, Microsoft had a joint program with the Maltese government to support students’ digital literacy. The company has a long history in the community. We chose Microsoft because we can trust them, and they have been on this island long enough to understand our community. Selecting Microsoft was an easy decision."

The local presence provided support that was vital to Moneybase in navigating the cloud landscape. With the intention to build a robust solution using the best that cloud has to offer,” explains Cuschieri.

Enhancing customer experience with technology

Moneybase integrated various cloud solutions to serve its customers securely and effectively. Azure API Management streamlines Moneybase’s operations, enabling it to manage a multitude of financial services. Azure App Service supports the development of Moneybase's web and mobile applications, ensuring they are powerful and scalable. Meanwhile, Azure Automation and Azure Backup help safeguard the platform's operations by automating workflows and ensuring data is securely backed up.

Azure DevOps helped Moneybase expedite its development cycle, enabling continuous integration and deployment, essential for maintaining the neobank's innovative edge. ”The backend, hosted on Azure, is scalable, ready to grow quickly. Azure Kubernetes Service also provides self-healing—if one server goes down, another starts automatically,” notes Cuschieri.

Moneybase also uses Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service for customer relationship management (CRM) and Microsoft 365 E3 for collaboration and productivity. With SharePoint for file storage, Microsoft Teams and Outlook for communication, and Microsoft Intune for device management, Moneybase ensures that internal collaboration is smooth, and data and devices are always secure.

Cloud-powered security and innovation

With a cloud-native infrastructure, Moneybase has created an environment where secure and user-centric designs converge, bringing to life a neobank that aligns with the needs of modern customers. Since its launch, Moneybase has onboarded 40,000 customers and has seen a 183% annualized growth in its customer base. "Our launch as the first fully digital wealth and payments platform went viral. We received a lot of positive feedback and encouragement from various local entities and the community at large. This led to more accolades like Best Financial Institution and Best App awards," which continued to fuel our team’s passion and commitment to build something special that leaves a positive impact on people's financial lives, Cuschieri shares.

For Moneybase's customers, the cloud has brought unprecedented speed, convenience and stability to our platform. They can also manage all aspects of their finances with full visibility, receive real-time notifications, and perform transactions effortlessly. "Many customers nowadays want the flexibility to do everything digitally, and cost efficiently whilst at the same time having the peace of mind that our ISO certified customer support team is just a call away," Cuschieri highlights. “Users can check their balance or make investment transactions across 40 markets on the fly across mobile and web devices. The reception by our customers has been very positive.”

Azure has also brought peace of mind to Moneybase and its customers. “As CISO, I prioritize robust cybersecurity measures. Our adoption of Microsoft 365 and Azure is central to this commitment,” says Mark Busuttil, Chief Information Security Officer at Moneybase. “These solutions offer advanced threat protection, identity management, and encryption, bolstering our defenses against evolving cyber threats. With seamless integration and built-in intelligence, we enhance our ability to detect and respond to threats swiftly. This ensures the security of our sensitive data and critical assets, enabling secure remote work, safeguarding against phishing attacks, and ensuring compliance.” This vigilant approach has already secured the ISO 9001 certification for Moneybase’s Customer Care and propelled it towards achieving ISO 27001 certification. “Our investment in Microsoft's solutions not only strengthens our security posture but also drives operational efficiency and innovation,” he adds.

Designing the future of banking

Today, Moneybase is focused on expanding its business account services, a sector where it has already made significant strides. "We've just added Moneybase Business. We're opening accounts for businesses in 48 hours, which is quite unprecedented, as normally, banks have taken several months to do this," Cuschieri states. This focus on speed and a cost-efficient service is part of a broader strategy to offer a comprehensive suite of financial services to businesses, including payment approvers and payroll integration with major accounting systems. The company's roadmap also includes collaborations with banks to introduce products like fixed deposits and credit services. “We are avant-garde and on top of technology. Both our digital processes and our infrastructure are well-established, providing an excellent foundation to continue building more services for our clients. We can do this easily, securely, and cost-efficiently because our system was designed for the cloud.”

"What made our journey such a success is our team's commitment to move to the cloud," Cuschieri acknowledges. “Once we took that leap, we were able to build something entirely new, convenient, and simple. That's how we differentiate ourselves from other banks and financial institutions. We've always been service-oriented, putting the customer first and we go to great lengths to ensure that all our customers are given a stellar service.”

Moneybase Limited C 87193 which is licensed by the MFSA to transact the business of a Financial Institution in terms of the Financial Institutions Act, Cap 376. Calamatta Cuschieri Investment Services Ltd C13729 which is licensed by the MFSA to undertake investment services business under the Investment Services Act, Cap 370.