Most people have never heard of NatWest Boxed. That is by design.
Instead of selling financial products via its own banking channels, NatWest’s banking-as-a-service business embeds savings accounts, loans and other services into the apps and digital platforms of companies like Sainsbury’s, the AA and Saga.
Some may question the logic of one of the UK’s “big four” lenders creating a standalone business that encourages consumers to use alternatives to its own bank branches or digital channels. But NatWest Boxed chief Andrew Ellis argues that the “world is changing” in terms of how customers want to access financial services, which banks need to acknowledge.
Career history: Andrew Ellis
2025-present: Chief executive officer, NatWest Boxed
2022-2023: Head of digital assets, NatWest Group
2020-2023: Chief executive officer, Mettle
2019-2023: Non-executive director, FreeAgent
“We’re a customer-driven bank, and that will always be the case. But I don’t think you can be so dogmatic about every product being through the main bank channel. NatWest Boxed offers an alternative to that,” he says.
NatWest Boxed emerged in 2022 from a “strategic partnership” between NatWest and European Baas provider Vodeno. Vodeno was later acquired by UniCredit. Boxed continues to combine NatWest’s banking licence and expertise with an “in-house tech stack”. It also draws on the UK lender’s experience developing digital products such as Mettle, its banking service for small businesses.
Although part of the wider NatWest Group, Boxed has its own management team, employees, tech and commercial strategy. Ellis says this means it can move more quickly when it comes to testing out ideas or exploring new opportunities. One such area is “buy now, pay later” or “point-of-sale lending”, which Ellis plans to roll out to consumer brands via NatWest Boxed in the coming months.
“Point of sale lending is clearly an enduring and arguably growing area of finance, so there’s encouragement for me to go into that,” he told The Banker.
NatWest Boxed’s growing interest in the BNPL space also happens to coincide with new UK regulations which came into force on July 15, bringing short-term, interest-free credit products under the formal supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority.
As BNPL enters the financial mainstream, Ellis says now is a good time for NatWest Boxed to explore launching an offering.
“If it becomes an area where innovation and growth happen, we want to have a bet on that,” he adds.
Andrew Ellis© NatWest
Here, as with any of its Baas solutions, Ellis believes the combination of NatWest’s 200-year history with its strong balance sheet and compliance expertise gives it an edge over fintechs operating in the space.
That distinction is important, he adds, for consumer brands writing five- to seven-year contracts for Baas services.
“These are regulated journeys and they’re selling regulated products. So what they don’t want is a regulatory or reputational issue. Working with us probably means that they’ve got a lesser chance of that happening,” he explains.
With NatWest Boxed, Ellis says corporate clients get that surety and confidence that they are still going to be around in five or 10 years and are further reassured by the fact that they have a direct line to the top if anything should go wrong.
“[NatWest Boxed] would never get picked if my technology and my balance sheet weren’t up to scratch. But I think the institutional relationship is probably a differentiator,” says Ellis, adding that if he does not perform, “companies know they can call NatWest chief Paul Thwaite, which is a comfort”.
In a signal of NatWest Boxed’s growing importance to the wider banking group, Thwaite told analysts on its first-quarter earnings call that it was “starting to see the impact” of its Boxed proposition on growth in retail deposits.
By 2030, McKinsey predicts that the Baas or embedded finance market in Europe could generate between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of total European banking revenues.
In addition to generating platform fees while also supporting deposit and lending growth, Boxed’s operating model and cloud-native technology are also attracting interest from across the wider NatWest banking group, according to Ellis.
“They’re not using our technology right now, but I think there’s a good chance they will in the future,” he says.