Intelligent Finance, or IF, are a defunct brand these days, so I guess migration costs would be far outstripped by maintenance of their old platforms, some of which are antiquated.
I’d have thought they were on the standard LBG platform, non?
I worked on the migration team at Lloyds in 2011 when the HBOS platform was migrated to the Lloyds platform and we went through months of testing over weekends with varying amounts of data it was an interesting time and was (at it’s time) the largest banking migration in Europe when it finally happened in Sept '11
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I don’t remember if they ever migrated to the same core banking platform, but IF will be using systems that other parts of the bank do not.
Interestingly their pensions back book was outsourced the other year in order to avoid investing in technology
And we all sighed with relief when it was delivered 
Do you have insight into the LBG architecture?
I ask because we’re otherwise just guessing, but a multitude of things can be meant by platform. I read it as a replacement for the core ledger and bank processing, which almost certainly have the mainframe as source. In this series, IF would be a great test as you’re moving from the same thing as you would be later for the bigger brands.
Where the brands diverge, or elements like UI/apps deviate, though is something I’m not sure I’d even want to guess at. From what I’ve seen of the Halifax stuff, it all seems (logo aside) pretty homogenous. In an ideal world they’d be built on using reusable APIs, but they’re probably not there…
I wonder if @davidroberts can share any insight?
Limited, which is why I don’t know.
It closed its books in 2013 or 14 if I remember rightly, so I don’t know if they migrated to the new online platform, and I’m pretty certain they never developed an app for it. I don’t remember if they were included in the core migration back in 2011.
Anyway, it’s largely irrelevant I guess. It costs billions per year to maintain the existing infrastructure, so as much as it might cost to migrate, the benefits to be gained in future years will be the ‘eyes on the prize’.
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I’d say this is a testament to Monzo’s impact in the last 2-3 years - big banks like lloyds now pushing forward with major migrations, despite all the potential pains and risks (TSB!), in order to provide a better digital experience for users
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My partner just got a letter through the post about a long forgotten savings account.
Not showing in the app. (Not sure why she still had the app!?) Called customer services, they said to re-register for online banking, tried to re-register it needed an account number and sort code. Only half an account number on the letter so couldn’t use that, no idea what the rest was.
So thought we’d call back, couldn’t pass security at first as we didn’t know the balance or last transactions on the account, (she hasn’t been an active Lloyds customer for 3-4 years). We managed to get through with a few bits of personal info and was informed we could now go and re-register. Went back to online banking to do so, plonked all the mountains of info they needed into the contact form we were given a ten digit reference number that we had to call back and give to customer support.
It was at this point we gave up. They’ll be pence in the account anyway.
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Well, credit where it’s due. I’ve been giving Lloyds a good airing over the past six months or so and I have to say they’ve not put a foot wrong.
I got interested when the word was being put about that Lloyds were making the running app-wise, in the high street.
Opening the account (Club Lloyds) was a doddle, seemingly as frictionless as either Monzo or Starling had been.
Credit card facilities were offered with no fuss (didn’t really need it, but hey ho, handy just in case eh?).
The app has been coming on nicely - well laid out and feature-rich (although not festooned with those irritating budgeting tools much vaunted elsewhere).
Everything’s instant update-wise with notifications seemingly happening as we speak. Funnily enough, I’m so pleased with the overall experience that the current absence of the odd feature isn’t a thing - it would be elsewhere…
Customer service by phone is really nice - required mainly for one-off set up things - not required for problem-solving.
And it looks nice.
There you are - that’s me and my barrow’s outside (one of my mum’s, that - blowed if I know what it means 
).
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It’s funny how these things are so subjective with a bank.
I’ve had two bad experiences with Lloyds recently. Couldn’t change my Lloyds credit card amount in the app but you can via the web. Couldn’t get any sense out of them with a unauthorised transaction and 14 hour chat delay where I got more survey messages than I did messages of help.
Constant messages when you log in that you have to dismiss to get to your accounts.
But it’s good that you like it!
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Does anyone know if the Lloyds app is the same as the Bank of Scotland / Halifax ones?
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It differs considerably from the RBS offering.
Exactly the same in all features
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Yup, same app. Get the same updates and everything. However I find the Lloyds one better than Halifax, aesthetically speaking.
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I agree, I think the Lloyds and Bank of Scotland apps are far nicer than Halifax even though they are essentially all the same.
Halifax used to be really ugly but now it isn’t quite as bad as it was.
And @Demmedelusive, there is a difference between the Bank of Scotland (a Lloyds Banking Group brand in Scotland) and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS, of financial crisis fame and part of the group that includes NatWest). Easily confused, and you are not the first to do so!
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Are RBS & Bank of Scotland different banks?
If they are, then I’m wrong in asserting they’re different from Lloyds. My RBS app is a world apart from Lloyds.
(Oops, thanks @SebH… I withdraw…
).
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Yes they are!
It’s RBS, NatWest, Ulster Bank (and Coutts, Adam & Co, Child & Co, Drummonds, and Holt’s Military Banking)
Separate is Lloyds Banking Group of Lloyds, Bank of Scotland and Halifax.
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Ta… 
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You’re welcome!
For what it’s worth, the same situation of an identical app re-skinned applies over at RBS, with NatWest and the others being identical.
Anyway, I don’t want to drag the thread off topic so to return to Lloyds…
It’s interesting to me that Lloyds now appear to have managed to update their systems so that notifications, which did often appear to be delayed, now seem near-enough instant for me.
I suspect this is built on top of their existing ancient mainframe as an additional “layer” to the system, but it seems that this is not a problem except in terms of increasing code complexity.
I think I read somewhere that even faster payments are a fudge at some banks, and apparently one high street bank was still running mainframe code from the 1970s which expected ticker-tape input as recently as 5 years ago (it probably still is). Apparently they had to write emulation code to produce stand-in ticker-tape output code, without the actual tape! Crazy! But it works and seems to be reliable so banks don’t want to take the risk of migration.
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Lloyds have confirmed they are cutting 1070 jobs.
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