Vida Bank was founded as Vida Homeloans in 2016 and has steadily grown its footprint across England and Scotland. It recently became a fully licensed bank and launched retail savings products alongside its existing specialist mortgage business. With more than £1 billion in deposits and a team of over 200 employees across three offices, the organisation operates in a highly regulated environment under frameworks such as the FCA and PRA and needs dependable, scalable technology partners to support continued expansion.

Years before 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 for a company in the financial sector. According to David Flashman, Director of Technology, the incumbent MSP made mistakes that simply should not be made, and those mistakes had direct impacts on uptime and system availability.

The bank was preparing to exit its former hosted environment and move into Microsoft Azure. It needed a partner with the technical depth and regulatory experience to make that transition smooth, because it did not have in-house expertise at the level required to manage cloud connectivity and firewalls.

As a dual-regulated entity, Vida Bank also faced rising expectations under frameworks such as the FCA and PRA. It needed to demonstrate evidence of oversight and compliance, show that its suppliers were delivering appropriately and be ready to intervene when needed.

Vida Bank's relationship began with ONI, which was subsequently acquired by Thrive. Having worked with members of the Thrive team in a previous role, Flashman reconnected with a familiar contact, now the bank's 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 the Azure migration, stepping in to manage firewalls, secure cloud connectivity and bridge the gaps between the bank's various platforms and internal systems. Thrive helped the bank build a structured support model that gave it confidence in the migration.

Since the migration, Thrive has delivered consistent monthly reporting, regular service reviews and clear visibility into support ticket trends. That consistency lets the bank demonstrate evidence of supplier oversight and compliance. The Thrive team has taken the time to understand how the bank works, so change is now executed in an aligned and efficient way, and it has stepped up on short notice when urgent needs arose, even outside its typical scope and when that meant juggling priorities.

• Increased stability, better uptime and more professional execution since the Azure migration
• Firewalls and secure cloud connectivity managed by Thrive, bridging the bank's platforms and internal systems
• Consistent monthly reporting and service reviews give the bank evidence of supplier oversight for FCA and PRA compliance
• Thrive has stepped up every time on late, urgent requests, even when it meant juggling priorities
• Aligned change processes mean the bank and Thrive execute changes efficiently as new business lines come to market