Even as we grow, we know that with Aurum we will be able to keep our controls to a high standard without concern.

Turning money into something greater for everyone, Moneybox places their customers at the forefront of everything they do. As such, they are constantly offering new products through their app, constantly receiving new accolades, and accordingly being tasked with safeguarding more money.  

Since 2015, Moneybox has grown at an extraordinary pace — so fast, in fact, that their transactional volume was becoming nearly too much for any Excel spreadsheet to handle.

The solution  

To continue offering great new products and investing in innovative app features, which would inevitably lead to more money moving between their accounts, Moneybox required a way to stay on top of their transactional data safely. After all, with a mission to help people save and invest for their future, Moneybox must not only grow people’s wealth but also protect their customers' money.  

It is well known that reconciliation is fundamental to achieving this – as per CASS regulations – but when operating on a scale that Moneybox is, reconciliation in a traditional sense wasn’t going to be a long-term viable solution. Simply put, to manually reconcile transactions daily, Moneybox would have to repeatedly invest in new hires to match the pace of growth, whilst running the risk of human error.  

As such, Kaley Addo, Head of Investment Operations, and Naomi Skinner, Head of CASS, both knew that in the best interests of Moneybox, their teams, and their customers, automating their reconciliations was what they needed. The fact that the FCA had at the time published a 'Dear CEO' letter about the importance of deploying automation only reinforced their decision. However, that still left the question of how exactly Moneybox should automate their reconciliations.  

In usual Moneybox style, initially an in-house solution was scoped. However, it soon became apparent that the amount of development time required could be at the cost of more customer-facing features. So, talks began with automation experts, and, compared to other providers, Aurum offered the most growth potential, flexibility, and collaboration – essential for a scaling, ever-evolving company such as Moneybox.  

Aurum means we can look at Operations in a different way – our teams don’t need to grow to keep on top of reconciliations, instead we can focus on enhancing our product offerings for our customers.

Kaley Addo, Head of Investment Operations
Moneybox  

The results  

Once Aurum had been selected as Moneybox’s automated reconciliation partner, Alice Drake, Investment Operations Manager, felt confident that “implementation would be achieved quickly due to working with experts for whom reconciliation is their bread and butter”.  

Out of all the reconciliation teams I’ve worked with, Aurum are definitely the most on the ball and prompt.‍

Adam Burgess, Senior CASS Associate
Moneybox  

Whilst the speed of implementing back-office automation was particularly vital for Moneybox so they could continue to grow and meet regulatory requirements, equally important was the rate at which Aurum’s automation could handle their transactions. After all, Kaley knew that their “reconciliations won’t be static” but would, in fact, always be evolving, whether that be by volume or format, meaning that the speed of reconciliation would have to be sustainable.  

From the onset of using Aurum, they collectively saved 11.3 hours a day as a team, and despite transaction volumes increasing on their system in the last 12 months, Alice does not “anticipate any reduction in time-saving”. Most impressively, this sustained level of time-saving has been achieved with no additional recruitment which would not have been possible without Aurum.  

Having transactions in Aurum automated to reconcile off against each other based on set business rules creates exponential time savings.‍

Alice Drake, Investment Operations Manager
Moneybox  

By employing Aurum’s automation to handle reconciliation and, as a result, keeping the overall team lean, everyone involved in Kaley’s department gained a holistic view of Investment Operations – a rarity in many other companies where anomalies, reconciliation, transactions, etc. grow so large that they become individual functions in their own right, resulting in personnel being siloed into dedicated areas. Moneybox’s partnership with Aurum is therefore as much about reducing the workload of repetitive tasks as it is about increasing the variety and value of work that finance professionals engage with – a positive for the morale of the entire team and the development of their careers on an individual basis.  ‍

Aurum and its automation enable us to operate as a non-siloed group and for people to deal with the bigger picture beyond reconciliation. It makes everything a lot more fun.‍

Alice Drake, Investment Operations Manager
Moneybox  

Along with developing their people, partnering with Aurum also means that as the overseer of payments infrastructure, Kaley can “grow and enhance” Moneybox’s reconciliations with flexibility, something which she felt was lacking when talking to other reconciliation companies. Already, this has come to fruition on multiple occasions since adopting Aurum, with the following changes being swiftly implemented:  

• Additional reconciliations set up following Moneybox introducing the ability for customers to move funds between their different Moneybox accounts    
• Customised colour-coding of reports to indicate the speed of transfer payments being allocated
•  And inbuilt CMAR reports soon to follow…

Generating our CMAR reports directly within Aurum is a huge benefit because accuracy is assured, with the intel coming from just one trusted source instead of various different places.

‍Adam Burgess, Senior CASS Associate
Moneybox  

The future  

A company like Moneybox is already operating with one foot in the future – their innovation keeps them in perpetual forward movement, which means they are often experiencing the next big thing before others in the industry make the same progress.  

Even as we grow, we know that with Aurum we will be able to keep our controls to a high standard without concern and without damaging manager time. There’s trust and reliability with Aurum for swift collaboration.‍

Kaley Addo, Head of Investment Operations
Moneybox  

Fortunately, with Aurum by their side, the Investment Operations team not only know that they now have the capacity to deal with future demand that new innovations will generate but that they can also steer these developments. For instance, thanks to Aurum freeing up her time in advance of Moneybox launching their Cash ISA in September 2023, Alice was able to offer valuable input on the back-end operations of this product. The result was the production of an industry-leading rate in collaboration with software engineers, product, compliance and customer-facing teams.  

Previously we were so focused on getting our recs done, but now we can contribute to the rollout of new products a lot earlier.

‍Alice Drake, Investment Operations Manager
Moneybox  

The future will, therefore, no doubt be more of the same. With Aurum taking care of their reconciliation processes, Investment Operations at Moneybox will continually expand their influence to focus on delivering results for who they and their entire company care most about – their customers.  ‍

I would just like to say thank you – it was down to how well Aurum worked with us and how well you understood what we were doing that our automated reconciliation ended up being a success.‍

Kaley Addo, Head of Investment Operations
Moneybox