Redwood Bank was founded in 2015 with a clear ambition: to build a specialist business bank for UK SMEs that operated entirely in the cloud. No legacy systems. No inherited infrastructure. No physical data centres. Everything from the core banking platform to internal collaboration tools would run on Microsoft Azure.
It was a genuine first. In 2016, very few financial services organisations had committed to cloud infrastructure at all, let alone built an entire bank on it. The regulatory environment was cautious. The PRA and FCA had limited precedent for approving a fully cloud-hosted banking operation, and Redwood’s founding team - CEO Gary Wilkinson and co-founder Jonathan Rowland - knew they had to prove the model was secure, auditable, and compliant from the outset.
Redwood received its initial banking licence in April 2017 and set itself a demanding target: go live within months, not years. That meant building the customer-facing platform, the cloud infrastructure, and all the regulatory controls in parallel - while satisfying a regulator that had never signed off on this kind of architecture before.
The bank needed a technology partner who could build a digital presence that matched the ambition of the underlying platform: modern, clear, and built to earn trust from day one in a sector where trust is everything.
"Working with Distinction was instrumental in bringing Redwood Bank to life as the UK’s first fully cloud-based bank. Their expertise in building our customer-facing website and banking interface ensured a seamless, user-friendly experience from day one. Just as importantly, their deep knowledge of Microsoft Azure allowed us to create a secure, scalable, and compliant cloud infrastructure which is critical for any financial institution. Their ability to balance innovation with regulatory requirements gave us confidence at every stage."
We designed and built Redwood Bank’s customer-facing website and online banking interface, working alongside the bank’s internal team and its core banking partner DPR Consulting to create a cohesive digital experience across every customer touchpoint.
The website had to do more than look professional. It needed to explain a new type of bank to a sceptical audience - business owners and finance directors who were being asked to trust their deposits and mortgage applications to an institution with no branches, no legacy, and no track record. The messaging, structure, and user experience all had to work harder than a typical banking site because there was no established brand recognition to fall back on.
We built the site on Kentico CMS, hosted within Redwood’s Azure environment, so the bank maintained full control over its content infrastructure from launch. The design prioritised clarity: simple product pages, transparent rates, and straightforward application paths that reflected the bank’s core proposition of speed and simplicity.
Alongside the website, we helped orchestrate the Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure - configuring the environment for performance, security, and regulatory compliance. This included working with Microsoft’s Financial Services team to ensure the hosting setup met FCA and PRA requirements, which was essential given that Redwood was the first UK bank to deploy a core banking system entirely on Azure.
The entire build - from website and banking interface through to cloud configuration - was delivered within the bank’s compressed timeline. Redwood completed its mobilisation phase just four months after receiving its initial licence, making it one of the fastest licence-to-launch programmes in UK banking history.
Redwood Bank went live in August 2017 as the UK’s first fully cloud-native business bank. The platform worked from day one - savings accounts opened, mortgage applications processed, and the cloud infrastructure handled regulated banking operations without interruption.
The speed of launch was itself a result. Redwood completed the entire process from banking licence application to live operations in approximately 12 months - a timeline that multiple industry commentators noted as one of the fastest for any new UK bank. That speed was a direct consequence of the cloud-native approach: no physical infrastructure to provision, no legacy systems to integrate, and a digital platform that was ready the moment the regulator gave approval to trade.
Within its first two years, the bank reached its £100 million lending milestone - five months ahead of schedule. By 2020, the bank had attracted over 5,000 customers and more than £400 million in deposits. By the end of 2024, total assets had grown to £635 million, the deposit base stood at £553 million, and the loan book had increased by 18.1% year-on-year to £492 million. Since launch, the bank has lent over £760 million to support UK SMEs.
Redwood reached profitability in under four years - one of the fastest results for any UK challenger bank. It has remained profitable every year since, with profit before tax doubling for three consecutive years through to 2023.
The cloud infrastructure has proved its value over time. The bank has scaled from a small founding team to approximately 150 staff, expanded its product range to include fixed-rate mortgages, buy-to-let lending, and charity savings accounts, and done so without the capital expenditure of traditional banking infrastructure. The operational cost advantages of cloud-native architecture - replacing large upfront hardware investment with manageable, usage-based infrastructure costs - have been a material factor in the bank’s path to profitability.
Industry recognition followed. Redwood won Banking Launch of the Year at the Retail Banker International Awards in 2018, Best Use of Cloud at the Banking Technology Awards the same year, and has won the Business Moneyfacts award for Best Business Variable Rate Deposit Account Provider for seven consecutive years. The bank has received 28 award wins in total since launch.
Redwood Bank successfully launched as the UK’s first fully cloud-based bank, with an intuitive digital interface that made banking more accessible and efficient for customers.
The website and banking platform provided a seamless experience, driving strong customer engagement from the outset. The Azure-based infrastructure enabled real-time data processing, enhanced security, and cost-efficient scalability.
By combining a strong digital experience with a future-proof cloud setup, Redwood Bank was able to establish itself as a modern, agile financial institution ready for long-term growth.
