Level is an emerging fintech focused on employee financial well-being and ultimately good mental health. The sensitivity surrounding health and money means Level needs impeccable security credentials to be able to engage with the user community and a trusted customer partner to both HR and Finance Directors.
We worked with Level to establish how quality, security and safety, could be embedded in their environments, IT development and operations as simple day-to-day BAU and create effective Certified and Auditable processes
The Clients Mission
Money worries can be a symptom or a cause of mental health challenges which can impact productivity in the workplace.
Workers are looking for assistance with financial wellness at work and employers that provide staff with the right tools can improve talent acquisition and retention.
Employers are now uniquely positioned to help their employees build a stronger financial future by offering flexible pay, personalised budgeting tools and relevant financial education.
Level’s product helps you get the most out of your hard-earned wages. You can access your pay early, build a savings buffer or save towards a specific goal and gain control over your spending.
Financial wellness is a key part of your overall wellbeing. Reducing financial stress helps you navigate challenging times and plan for the future.
The Engagement
After a brief review of Level’s desired outcomes and challenges with the founders and senior management team, we used our CIO as a service to augment the company’s IT capability on an affordable part-time basis. One of our Principal Consultants also acted as interim CISO (Chief Information & Security Officer) to help embed changes and allow the company to mature its process and win deals
Working with Level ABN focused on key areas to achieve success.
- Secure public Certified Standards in Security Management
- Ensure Level’s IT Platform used modern development practices with quality and security baked in.
- Exploit cloud cost advantages and security features
- Customer First Support Tooling
- Continuous Improvement techniques
Certification – slashing time with the right tooling
We can’t “do your security for you” but we can reduce the time, cost and anxiety
Most companies see security as a necessary burden which results in a sales killing bureaucracy.
Startups are resource-light with constant pressure to prioritise and deliver. Sales are essential to ensure survival, but failure to deliver or unsecure systems can destroy a business overnight. We demonstrated that having clear security and management standards in place provides a huge competitive advantage, but we needed to help the company discover effective ways to win those sales.
We selected ISO27001 https://www.iso.org/isoiec-27001-information-security.html as the standard to achieve but also introduced automation and partner tooling. We are big fans of automation and helpful tooling to give companies more time to spend on their customers needs
We recommended ISMS.online as a central tool for managing their security programme managmement and associated documents. ISMS.Online made a significant reduction in the time needed to adopt the standard (we estimate) 50% time-saving
To maintain ISO27001 after achieving it, ABN provided assurance through regular audits, reviews of specific risks and internal policy templates (such as cyber-incident response plans)
ABN also implemented an infosec program for education, awareness sessions and review
Code Quality – Prevention is better than cure.
Level followed a classic pattern of rapidly creating a platform to take them to market. We love the enthusiasm of new companies and we are often bought in to help evolve more mature processes and techniques to dealing with scaling issues
We worked with the Development team and managers to undertake an intensive code review by one of our code experts. Our findings helped highlight opportunities to improve testing and test automation to keep the code base safe during future change, maintain high levels of security during the build and reduce defects
If code is monitored correctly, including system dependencies with 3rd parties, confidence in releases grows exponentially
Engaging your customers with a new support portal.
Loving your customers is the best way to win their trust and their business
The customer-first support tooling and the supporting strategies that were deployed by the team included an email to helpdesk migration and status pages. A strong team and stakeholder collaboration helped create trust and ensured buy-in from all parties involved
With these changes in place, the quality of support increased and customers were more comfortable engaging with their support representatives
The email to helpdesk migration also reduced costs, improved client satisfaction and increased efficiency for both customers and company employees
The new support portal was built off the Atlassian product suite and offered clients self-service options and a personalised experience which gave them more control over how they engaged with the company
Database Technology Migration
Technical migrations can bring exciting benefits but often get mired in planning and execution problems
ABN worked closely with Level management to develop an enterprise-grade security model that would keep both the customer data and the customer’s business operations secure
This was deployed during a database migration to Level’s new chosen technology, Cloudbase. We were able to advise on application design, architecture as well as development practices with our client
Our aim was not only to deliver a seamless migration but also to avoid any potential disruptions during future release windows so zero-downtime releases could be deployed when required. Once those preparations were made it was smooth sailing for Level and their clients who are now safely using Couchbase Capella in production!
Why we like working with Level
We love their mission!
We work as partners
We see the results
They were not afraid of change
Imagine consultants that actually do something!
We work with companies who need the benefit and experience of senior IT practitioners, able to tackle challenging problems of scale, change and IT management, But, who don’t want or cannot afford the full-time salary on their books
With ABN you do not need to compromise on quality or break the bank to give your company a boost in managing technology
And yes we are a bit geeky but we take your business very seriously indeed