10 Years of Quality: and Expleo

A successful partnership Why Expleo was chosen

Lloyds Banking Group has been engaged in a partnership A proven track record with Expleo since 2008. This partnership’s purpose is for At Expleo, we’ve completed over Expleo to provide comprehensive quality assurance and 1,200 successful testing projects in the banking sector over 20 testing services. years, developing deep domain knowledge prior to this partner- Within that, the cards business is migration from a legacy system over to ship. That extensive experience, undoubtedly a very important, and very FirstVision, a project which was known as and familiarity with FirstVision, profitable, part of Lloyds Banking Group. Programme Starlight. were the basis of the decision to Our Expleo consultants ensure all stake- choose us as its partner for such holders and customers are confident the We’ve been providing testing and quality a critical programme. We also technology supporting the business will assurance on FirstVision for Lloyds, , have a specialist understanding maintain the required enterprise-grade and , including a large team oper- of a typical card lifecycle, adding levels of performance at all times. ating within the business, ever since. another dimension to the exper- tise we were able to contribute. Working behind the scenes Today, that team has grown to 80 people, FirstVision, the platform on which across both onshore and offshore Other differentiation we offered They provide quality Lloyds Banking Group’s retail credit locations. Typically, the team includes included a proven offshore- deliverables, testing and card business is built and managed, subject matter experts (SMEs) for centric delivery model compatible is a hosted application provided by specific technologies in different parts with Lloyds Banking Group’s own, application expertise First Data. Expleo’s first involvement of the business; everything from credit plus existing assets, pre-built and ensure we deliver. in 2008 was in carrying out the full card specialists to FirstVision experts. repositories, and intellectual Head of Test, Consumer Finance, property, which have all since Group Transformation been leveraged. 2 3 Our shared journey We have been in a long term, c 10 year, relationship with Expleo and in my experience this is one of the better partners I have been exposed to. The quality of the people, the communication and professionalism has been excellent. You really feel the client/partner are working together.

Head of Test, Consumer Finance, Group Transformation

2008 2018

4 5 Programme Starlight Merger with HBOS

Our role in Programme Starlight involved When Lloyds Banking Group As a result, HBOS a number of different responsibilities, took over HBOS in 2009, it was needed to be found that HBOS had its own including the shaping of an acceptance cards business, hosted on a migrated into its own strategy and user acceptance testing (UAT) different platform not provided framework, including from a platform-specific perspective. by First Data. This also meant all the business HBOS’s cards business operated processes and data, using processes tailored to that Of course, data migrations are between business requirements as well as removing carried out in phases, and the and software capabilities. software. any redundancies, data is frequently evaluated during the process. But our Some key points of value simplifying the archi- team also worked tirelessly to delivered throughout the tecture, and so on. test and quality-assure all the programme were: Back to overview data which was migrated to • Closing a 95 % gap in asset FirstVision, around 6.5 million reporting requirements cards in total over 18 months. • Accelerating the test design process by 70 % Bringing sector-specific • Reducing testing costs expertise, we overcame both by 50 % financial and scheduling • Closing a 40 % gap in challenges, and quickly business process flows identified many troublesome gaps which were in place Back to overview

6 7 Release-C and Simplification

Release-C was a major bank-wide upgrade which took place around 2012 TS2

It eventually led to the In addition to the Simplification Programme, retail which quite literally simplified the entire architecture of the business, we’ve Lloyds Banking Group cards also helped deliver business. Simplification was products to the another migration of sorts, corporate credit in which we successfully card market. harmonised Lloyds Banking Group with HBOS and This was done on a platform We began working on the TS2 streamlined the merger. called TS2, separate from programme in 2012, launching Back to overview First Vision, and involved multi-currency cards for cor- testing and quality-assuring porate customers, successfully systems to provide credit cards delivering the project, which for employees from within dealt with many high-profile corporate customers. large enterprise customers. Back to overview 8 9 Apple Pay

The launch of Apple We validated the software’s Pay functionality interaction with FirstVision; something which had never for Lloyds Banking Verde been done before. This has Group customers in allowed Lloyds Banking Group recent years was also to provide customers with use When TSB separated from Lloyds Banking supported by Expleo. of their Apple mobile devices Group in 2013, a programme called ‘Verde’ to make contactless payments, and have those transactions was created to manage this large scale appear in the platform like a change. normal credit card transaction. Back to overview Our team carried out the de- This also involved streamlining migration and de-coupling a range of tasks such as issuing of the data between the two letters to customers, updating systems, moving any card records, completing regulatory holders from those branches processes on a bank-wide scale, into the new organisation, creating new online banking along with their existing websites, and much more. accounts and all the necessary Back to overview data.

10 11 Going above and beyond The results

As the partnership has developed over time, our role has speak for themselves moved beyond just an acceptance testing partner.

There are now multiple Expleo people We also help manage the relationship It’s been found that 70 % of software However, the cost of fixing errors at the in the platform SME teams within with First Data, who produces the initial errors originate during the early analysis end of development is far higher than Lloyds Banking Group, handling change design documents for each change, and design phases of projects, but only in the formative stages. At Expleo, we requests and validating all business which then need to be validated 10 % are found and corrected at that pride ourselves on ensuring errors are requirements which come through, to or assessed to see if any existing point. caught – and fixed – as early as possible, see if they can be delivered within First functionalities can be leveraged. to minimise their financial and practical Vision. Those requirements are then impact. either added, or built from scratch.

Through our focus on quality, since the partnership began, Expleo has delivered: Engagement is positive and regular and we have an open two way communication 50 % 40 % 45 % channel supporting what we need to do. Reduction in UAT costs Gaps in business Faster execution The contact feels personal and as a customer process filled we feel valued rather than just another Client. Cannot ask for more. 70 % 100 % 94 % Head of Test, Consumer Finance, Group Transformation Faster test planning KPI-adherence Asset report requirements

12 13 What the future holds Quality breeds longevity

A new three-year deal was signed last card accounts, meaning Lloyds Banking A ten-year partnership built on trust, primary quality assurance partner, and year, and Expleo is delighted to now sit Group will own between 25 % and 30 % confidence, and success is a truly great used them to continually innovate and on the PSL with Lloyds Banking Group. market in the UK. We’ll help deliver this achievement, and it has continued to improve since 2008. huge programme with its assurance go from strength to strength. Expleo Work has now begun on the MBNA services and test data management is a business built on the philosophy Quality is the fundamental reason why credit card programme. This will double (which will include 65,000 data points of putting quality first in everything this partnership has flourished, and has the market share to around 20 million for testing), validating typical scenarios it does. Lloyds Banking Group has already provided a solid foundation for the business will go through in any given embraced those same values from its certain success in the near future. day or week.

Discussions regarding release management services from Expleo From the Relationship Managers down to the Test are also ongoing, which will open a Analysts the quality of the people has been excellent. whole new dynamic. The knowledge and skills are top level. The whole relationship is more personal and you feel valued by But with quality at the the Partner and hopefully this is reciprocated. Some of core of everything, the the other partners I have worked with do not manage partnership is sure to these aspects well due to being too big to maintain a relationship and supply inexperienced resources keep growing, generating to fill gaps rather than the specialty required. new opportunities, and Head of Test, Consumer Finance, Group Transformation delivering mutual value for many years to come.

14 15 For further information, or if you have any other questions, please write an email to [email protected]

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