Q. What progress has been made since NatWest formed a partnership with AWS and Accenture?
The first year has really been about getting the foundations right. Banks hold a huge amount of data, but because NatWest has grown and evolved over many years, that information sits across different systems and parts of the organisation.
Our Enterprise Data Transformation programme is changing that. At its simplest, we're making important data easier to find, trust, share and reuse.
Q. Can you give some examples of where that work is already making a difference?
We’re starting to see tangible benefits. In our Commercial & Institutional business, teams can now directly access and analyse data themselves, which makes it easier to spot trends, test different scenarios and make more informed decisions. In Finance, higher-quality data has helped teams identify opportunities to improve balance sheet efficiency and release additional liquidity capacity, supporting customers and business growth.
We’re also making the technology behind that data simpler and faster. Some data-engineering work that previously took weeks can now be completed in days, helping us respond more quickly to business needs.
Taken together, these changes are laying the groundwork for more personalised and proactive banking.
Q. The Data Marketplace is a big part of this work. What is it in simple terms?
Despite the name, it's not a marketplace where anything is being bought or sold. It's essentially a central place where colleagues can access reliable, ready-to-use information from across the bank.
That means less duplication, less time spent searching for and checking information, and more confidence in the information being used to make decisions. The core of the Data Marketplace is now in place, which is an important milestone in the first year.
Q. What does better data allow you to do with AI that you couldn’t before?
AI is only as good as the information behind it. By bringing the two together, we can give our colleagues better insights, making it easier to identify customers across different banking relationships and reducing repeated onboarding and identity checks.
The opportunity is to make banking more seamless, proactive and personalised, anticipating what a customer might need, rather than simply reacting. That's why this transformation matters. It’s helping create the conditions to use AI in ways that can make a meaningful difference to how our customers can bank with us.
Q. What’s the focus for the next stage of the partnership?
The first year was largely about building the foundations, so the next stage is about making greater use of them. That means helping more teams across the bank benefit from trusted information and continuing to simplify the technology behind our services.
Ultimately, this isn't transformation for transformation's sake. It’s about using data and technology to create better experiences and outcomes for our customers.
