Ex-Barclays CEO Jenkins Targets Banks With Cloud-Computing Firm

(Bloomberg) -- Former Barclays Plc Chief Executive Officer Antony Jenkins is looking to sell cloud-based computer systems to banks, targeting lenders mired by aging technology that's prone to failure.

Jenkins, 55, ousted from the London-based lender last year, has opened a company named 10X Future Technologies, according to a statement on Monday. He's working with Mark Allcock, a former technology specialist at Barclays, and Brad Goodall, who previously ran a fintech consultancy that advised Australian wealth-management firms.

Global lenders, facing competition from startups, are pushing to cut costs as income from lending is squeezed by record-low interest rates and anaemic growth. Major British banks are struggling to reverse decades of underinvestment in IT and working to untangle crumbling computer systems tacked together following mergers over the past two decades.

“The digital age provides banks with the opportunity to overhaul their technology systems,” Jenkins, who is founder and executive chairman of the business, said in the statement. His new firm will help banks “develop a much deeper understanding of their clients, cut costs and deal with regulation.”

Opening a fintech business focusing on core banking systems will pit Jenkins against a number of startups and technology companies. These include U.K.-based Thought Machine, opened by former Google engineers, and more established U.S. rivals Fiserv, Inc., Fidelity National Information Services Inc., Switzerland's Temenos Group AG, Britain's Misys Ltd. and Germany's SAP SE. 

British challenger banks such as Metro Bank Plc, Atom Bank and Tandem Bank use such software providers for their operating systems. 10X Future Technologies is aiming to help big banks bring together disparate systems into a single secure network, enabling them to crunch consumer data to improve efficiency and better assess risks. Cloud computing typically involves using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store and process data.

For more on British challenger banks using technology to take on bigger lenders, click here

While major British lenders typically rely on proprietary technology to offer checking accounts, credit cards and loans, they have faced difficulty upgrading systems in recent years. In August, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc scrapped efforts to create a platform based on its technology for its Williams & Glyn consumer unit after running into IT problems.

To contact the reporter on this story: Richard Partington in London at rpartington@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Jon Menon, Ross Larsen