Digital-only challenger banks were rewriting Canadian customers' expectations of what a bank should feel like.
This Tier 1 Canadian bank needed to respond — not with a digital skin over legacy systems, but with something genuinely new. The challenge wasn't just technical: it was building a regulated, production-grade banking product from scratch, at pace, that could compete with fintechs who had no legacy constraints and a fraction of the compliance overhead. The regulatory and security bar was non-negotiable. The competitive urgency was real.
Kablamo joined as an embedded engineering partner from Discovery through to Production to build the digital banking application and modernized core banking platform.
The front end was built on React Native mobile, React web, and the Web BFF orchestration layer that sits between customers and the bank's core systems. Kablamo co-designed the customer-facing experience and the technical architecture underpinning it, while respecting the full weight of Canadian banking regulation, compliance, and security requirements. The platform was built on domain-driven architecture (BIAN-aligned), with Auth0 for authentication, Contentful for regulated document management, and Salesforce Customer 360 for support operations — all integrated through a modular, extensible service layer.
Together, Kablamo and the bank’s innovation team delivered a production digital banking platform - Canada's first of its kind - with a mobile and web experience designed to compete directly with digital challengers, built on bank-grade infrastructure.
Through the program, the bank adopted modern SaFE agile development practices, transforming how they deliver technology at pace and scale. They adapted and validated modern architectural principles like domain-driven architectures, building internal skills and capabilities to carry to future programs.
