ALLICA BANK
This insight forms the foundation of Allica’ s strategy: combining human expertise with cutting-edge technology.
Rather than eliminating the human element to reduce costs, as many traditional banks have done, Allica has invested heavily in automating everything that sits behind that human interaction.“ One of the things I observed in the major banks was they were going about the cost-to-serve problem in the wrong way,” Richard reveals.
“ They were generally removing the human the client talked to because they couldn’ t change their legacy back office. But the human is the main thing the client valued.”
Richard sees this as a fundamental misalignment with customer needs.“ So as we thought about this problem, we’ ve said,‘ look, while providing great value, how do we maintain the human that can talk to the client while automating as much as possible via proprietary software, essentially everything that sits behind that human?’”
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ALLICA BANK’ S TARGET MARKET( BUSINESSES WITH 5-250 EMPLOYEES) REPRESENTS APPROXIMATELY ONE-THIRD OF THE UK ECONOMY
“ Established SMEs are getting gouged by the major banks”
RICHARD DAVIES, CEO, ALLICA BANK
This approach allows Allica to deliver the personalised service SMEs value while maintaining competitive operational efficiency.
For a segment often caught between the highly automated, self-service model of consumer banking and the high-touch relationship banking of corporate finance, this hybrid approach addresses a critical gap in the market.
Building a tech engine for SME growth With over 200 in-house engineers, Allica has made significant investments in proprietary technology.
The bank’ s approach to development is distinctly decentralised, with 21 different engineering squads each responsible for continuously improving a particular service or product.
“ We have a very strong philosophy that even our most mature product is less than half done,” Richard explains.
“ We think we can improve every product dramatically, so we have engineering squads attached to every service and their job is to keep delivering new value to customers.”
This continuous improvement methodology reflects Allica’ s DNA
54 May 2025