Financial Services
Regulated, Reliable, Ready: How Vida Bank Found its Ideal IT Partner
From Lender to Licensed Bank
Since its founding as Vida Homeloans in 2016, Vida Bank has steadily grown its footprint across England and Scotland. The company recently achieved a major milestone—becoming a fully licensed bank and launching retail savings products alongside its existing specialist mortgage business. With more than £1 billion in deposits and a team of over 200 employees across 3 offices, the organisation now operates in a highly regulated environment and requires dependable, scalable technology partners to support its continued expansion.
Breaking Away from the Past
Years ago, before engaging with ONI, who was subsequently acquired by Thrive, Vida Bank worked with a managed service provider (MSP) whose quality of support was inconsistent at best. Missed details and poor execution created unacceptable business risks—particularly for a company in the financial sector. David Flashman, Director of Technology, explained, “The incumbent MSP made mistakes that just shouldn’t be made, and those mistakes had direct impacts on uptime and system availability.”
As the bank began exiting its former hosted environment and preparing to move into Microsoft Azure, it needed a partner with the technical depth and regulatory experience to ensure a smooth transition.
A Partnership Built on Trust and Expertise
Having worked with members of the Thrive team in a previous role, Flashman, reconnected with a familiar contact (now their Account Manager) to explore options for networking support. What started as assistance with connectivity and hardware provisioning, quickly grew into a trusted partnership. Thrive played a key role in Vida Bank’s Azure migration, stepping in to manage firewalls, secure cloud connectivity, and bridge gaps between the bank’s various platforms and internal systems.
“We don’t have in-house expertise at the level needed to manage cloud connectivity and firewalls,” he noted. “Thrive helped us build a structured support model that gave us confidence in the migration.”
Supporting Growth in a Regulated World
Since the migration, the bank has experienced increased stability, better uptime, and more professional execution than ever before. Just as importantly, Thrive has helped Vida Bank meet rising regulatory expectations. With consistent monthly reporting, regular service reviews, and clear visibility into support ticket trends, the bank is now able to confidently demonstrate evidence of oversight and compliance—a growing concern under frameworks like the FCA and PRA.
“There’s real consistency in the service reporting, which is good to see,” Flashman said. “It’s becoming more and more important for us as dual-regulated entities to show that our suppliers are delivering appropriately—and that we’re ready to intervene when needed.”
A Relationship That Delivers
The collaboration isn’t just technical—it’s a strong partnership. The Thrive team has proven responsive, dependable, and willing to step up on short notice when issues arise, even outside their typical scope. “We’ve sometimes called in late with urgent needs,” Flashman said, “and they’ve stepped up every time—even if it meant juggling priorities. That’s not something every supplier would do.”
He also credited the team’s ability to learn and align with the bank’s internal processes: “Every business operates differently and Thrive has taken the time to understand how we work. Now when we talk about change, we’re aligned and efficient in how it’s executed.”
Room to Grow, Together
While Vida Bank intentionally maintains a diverse supplier strategy, there is openness to deepening its relationship with Thrive as it brings new business lines to market. “There’s definitely more Thrive can offer,” he acknowledged. “We haven’t fully taken advantage of that yet, but as our needs evolve, there could absolutely be more opportunities to engage.”
With a focus now on growing its mortgage and savings books, the bank is looking to build value—not overhaul its systems. In Thrive, Vida Bank has a partner ready to scale alongside them.
“With a focus now on growing its mortgage and savings books, the bank is looking to build value—not overhaul its systems. In Thrive, Vida Bank has a partner ready to scale alongside them.” – David Flashman, Director of Technology, Vida Bank
About Thrive
Thrive delivers global technology outsourcing for cybersecurity, Cloud, networking, and other complex IT requirements. Thrive’s NextGen platform enables customers to increase business efficiencies through standardization, scalability, and automation, delivering oversized technology returns on investment (ROI). They accomplish this with advisory services, vCISO, vCIO, consulting, project implementation, solution architects, and a best-in-class subscription-based technology platform. Thrive delivers exceptional high-touch service through its POD approach of subject matter experts and global 24x7x365 SOC, NOC, and centralized services teams. Learn more at www.thrivenextgen.com or follow us on LinkedIn.