Work

Infrastructure that regulators, lenders and banks rely on.

Eight engagements, from the first Open Banking security drafts to a machine-learning categorisation engine in daily production use, written at the level of the engineering problem. Client-confidential detail stays confidential, and nothing here implies endorsement beyond the work described.

Open Banking Implementation Entity, 2017 to 2018

Working code before the standard was finished

The problem: The first Read/Write API specifications existed on paper. Third-party providers and the programme itself needed working code to prove they could be implemented, and the specifications needed a first major revision before nine banks built against them.
What we built: In 2017, within months of the Read/Write standard’s first release, Webovate built one of the first Python connectors for it. Unknown to Webovate, it was already in use by the first team helping the Open Banking Implementation Entity get started, the body set up by the banks to deliver the standard. In December 2017 the manager running that team invited Webovate to interview, and the company joined as a consultant: first in the support team, then quickly into the interim CTO’s architecture team working on the Read/Write APIs. Webovate was there as the programme’s security profile was donated to the OpenID Foundation and folded into the Financial-grade API standard now used around the world.
What changed: The Read/Write standard the CMA9 went live on in January 2018 (version 1.1), which across its later versions has carried more than one hundred billion API calls, and the start of the conformance programme that followed.

Open Banking Implementation Entity, 2018 to 2021

Conformance at national scale

The problem: Nine mandated banks, a standard moving through the 3.1.x releases, and regulatory deadlines under the CMA Order and PSD2. Each bank needed to prove its implementation followed the UK security and functional specifications.
What we built: Leading the conformance product for the OBIE: product ownership and technical delivery of the tools used to test every bank’s implementation against the security and functional standards, the reference applications and the certification programme, plus workshops every two weeks in London with the engineering and compliance teams at Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest, Santander, Nationwide, Danske Bank, AIB and Bank of Ireland. The functional and dynamic-client-registration tools remain open source and in use.
What changed: Conformance certificates that banks used as evidence to regulators, and a shared, repeatable way of checking that the ecosystem actually interoperated.

Ozone API, 2018 onward

Model banks for a new ecosystem

The problem: Third-party providers needed something real to build against before the banks were live, and the programme needed reference implementations that behaved exactly as the standard said.
What we built: Engaged by Ozone API to work with its engineers on the first model banks and the sandbox that became the programme’s official reference implementation, bringing the connector and conformance experience to a platform founded by the authors of the UK standard.
What changed: A reference environment that let fintechs and banks test against the standard from day one, and the foundation of a platform that now serves banks in dozens of markets.

Ozone API, 2021

Payments integrations and an international rollout

The problem: A standards-origin platform wanted to connect its Open Banking APIs to the payment platforms merchants already used, and to take the model to a new market in the Middle East.
What we built: Under a short full-time contract with Ozone API after the OBIE work, Webovate delivered the platform’s first integrations with Stripe and other payment providers, and the architecture for an open banking deployment connecting banks in the Middle East to the same standards-based model.
What changed: Account-to-account payments reachable through familiar payment platforms, and a repeatable pattern for standing up open banking beyond the UK.

AperiData, part of the PayPoint Group, 2021 to today

A credit bureau built on Open Banking data

The problem: A new company wanted to make lending decisions from consented transaction data instead of, or alongside, traditional bureau files. It had an idea and an application for account information permissions; it did not yet have a platform or a licence.
What we built: Everything from the first commit: the platform and controls that supported FCA authorisation as an Account Information Service Provider, Open Banking connectivity, secure data handling, the transaction categorisation engine, income and expenditure modelling, affordability and risk signals, and the decisioning console lenders use. As the business grew into a real-time credit bureau serving lenders across the United Kingdom, Webovate was engaged to build the platform underneath it. Webovate has been AperiData’s engineering partner and Open Banking specialist from its foundation and remains so five years on, with AperiData now also employing developers of its own.
What changed: A production platform in daily use across the lending lifecycle, now part of a listed payments group.

AperiData, part of the PayPoint Group, 2021 to today

Teaching a machine to read a bank statement

The problem: Raw Open Banking transactions are terse, inconsistent and bank-specific. Lending decisions need them classified into income, essential spending, discretionary spending, debt repayments and risk indicators, accurately and at volume.
What we built: A proprietary machine-learning categorisation engine trained on real production feeds, with income detection, recurring-payment recognition and affordability modelling layered on top. Continuously evaluated against labelled data and improved as the ecosystem changed.
What changed: Categorisation that drives affordability, creditworthiness and financial-health assessments across the lending lifecycle.

Gencia Media, with Webovate, 2015 to 2017

A civic platform for young people

The problem: Youth organisations across Greater Manchester needed a standard way to evidence their social impact to secure funding, and young people needed a platform designed with them rather than for them.
What we built: Technical lead and architecture for CTZN, a mobile and cloud platform built in partnership with Gencia Media: user research with teenagers, a scalable cloud backend and the reporting tools funders asked for.
What changed: Trialled by more than 120 organisations with over 3,500 young people, backed by government funding, and recognised with a string of awards including Digital Entrepreneur of the Year.

DigitalBridge, 2014 to 2016

Architecture for a computer-vision start-up

The problem: DigitalBridge, an award-winning computer-vision and machine-learning company building space-planning and room-visualisation tools for retailers, was growing fast and needed a backend and API architecture that could keep up with its models and its customers.
What we built: Contracted architecture as the second engineer in the business and for a period the only one: cloud infrastructure, API and service design for retailer integration, and the engineering practices that let the company scale its own team through a John Lewis accelerator win and recognition from NVIDIA, Wired and Retail Week.
What changed: A platform the business outgrew only when it had built a large engineering team of its own and raised institutional investment. Its founder calls that a testament to the value delivered.

Experience

Organisations we have worked with.

Client engagements delivered by Webovate, and the organisations that work has reached through them.

Open Banking Implementation Entity Read/Write API architecture, conformance, reference applications
Real-time credit bureau platform and categorisation engine
Model banks, payments integrations, international rollout
Civic technology and financial-sector platforms
CTZN Youth social-impact platform, Greater Manchester
DigitalBridge Computer-vision and machine-learning start-up: API and cloud architecture

Where that work has reached

Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest, Santander, Nationwide, Danske Bank, AIB and Bank of Ireland The CMA9, tested by the OBIE conformance product Webovate delivered
PayPoint PayPoint acquired AperiData in 2026; Webovate was engaged to build AperiData’s platform
Samsung UK, HTC, the NHS, Greater Manchester Police and SimplyBiz As clients of Gencia Media and Xlabs, on platforms Webovate architected
The Competition and Markets Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority Whose requirements the conformance programme and AperiData’s authorisations were built to meet

Recommendations

What the people we worked with say.

Public recommendations given for work delivered through Webovate, reproduced with the author's name and role at the time.

His role grew from Implementation Consultant to Product Owner delivering the conformance tools for ASPSPs’ security and functional standards required for CMA Order and PSD2 regulatory sign-off, and later to API Architect helping define the technical API standard with industry stakeholders. He is quite an Open Banking authority both in the UK and globally.

Masud Hussain Open Banking Consultant, Open Banking Implementation Entity

Glyn worked as both the Product Owner and the Technical Delivery Lead on the Reference Applications and Certifications. He proved highly capable from a business perspective, working across Open Banking with the large banks and the fintechs, and extremely technically competent in managing a team of developers.

Steve Murphy Delivery Manager, Open Banking Implementation Entity

Glyn and his team worked in the detailed technical team whilst I looked after the support team. On every occasion, Glyn not only solved the problem but did so with good grace and humour. Nothing was ever too much trouble.

Simon Waller Head of Testing, Open Banking Implementation Entity

Glyn worked with my business when we were a start-up and throughout our growth phase. His technical knowledge, both at a deep level within his core technology areas and in his high-level architectural view, was truly transformative.

David Levine Founder and former CEO, DigitalBridge

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