Ordo Case Study | AND Digital

The Client

About Ordo

New to the market, Ordo is a groundbreaking payments service for the Open Banking era. Ordo is designed to make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to stay in control of their finances - whether they’re collecting customer payments, or paying suppliers.

Competing against traditional payment giants and disruptors alike, Ordo knew first mover advantage is key in the FinTech space - but first, they needed to prove that their approach to helping business get paid was viable.

The challenge

Turning a product vision into a working prototype

Working at speed to meet the needs of users and investors

Enlisting AND’s software engineers and product specialists to tackle the challenge at speed, the first order of business was to turn product vision into working prototype. This would allow for early testing with users, and would bring the concept to life for potential investors.

It was also an essential step for validating the architecture and technology needed to power the proposition. Given the seismic shift Open Banking represents, identifying the right tech solution and API strategy in an environment of high ambiguity would be no easy feat.

The process

The first phase of the project was delivered in two key stages:

1. A fully functional Progressive Web App (PWA), utilising the Vue.js framework.

This avoided the need to build separate native mobile apps alongside the main desktop experience for the prototype, dramatically accelerating delivery time.

2. An extension to the PWA, providing integration with a PSD2 sandbox environment.

This would ensure flexibility in the testing approach, so that Ordo could meet the Open Banking integration standard - as the standard itself was evolving. If successful, it would mean the product was ready to integrate with other compliant services immediately.

Next steps

Investment and progression

Investment secured

With the prototype successfully validated, Ordo secured critical investment from Nationwide Building Society, which in turn allowed the joint team to begin the next phase of development.

Working closely with Ordo, as well as their partner, CGI, we moved swiftly to deliver the first iteration of the iOS app in May 2019, initially rolling it out to pilot users.

The web app version of Ordo was then commissioned, launching at the end of 2019. Similar to the iOS app, this was initially for a limited number of users so that user acceptance testing could be completed. The web app was released to all paying users in the first quarter of 2020.

Key outcomes

Robust foundations for growth

Building audiences and users

Both the iOS app and WebApp are now live and being used by paying customers.
With 300 individual active users, Ordo has also secured a multitude of small businesses across a variety of sectors including Learning & Development, Sport and Leisure and Health & Beauty, as well as a leading utilities company, and expects to have over 2,000 end users by mid-2020.
With the new app live, we have also been able to launch Ordo’s Neighbour2Neighbour campaign in a timely response to Covid-19. This allows people to run errands for others whilst the UK has been in lockdown, without having to physically hand over money or reveal their account details.
Ordo’s teams have upskilled in Agile ways of working and methodologies through sessions with one of our dedicated Agile coaches.