Banking Payments & Approval Platform

Banking payment operations

Project Brief

Antelle was engaged by a local bank to design, build, support and enhance an internal payment processing solution for its finance and payments team.

The bank required a secure and resilient platform to support outbound payment processing through NatWest, replacing manual payment processes with a more controlled, auditable and operationally robust solution. Key drivers included the need to improve approval controls, reduce operational risk, strengthen auditability and provide greater visibility across the full payment lifecycle.

The solution needed to ingest payment files from several line-of-business systems, present payments for internal review and approval, and submit authorised payments to NatWest for processing. It also needed to support Faster Payments and processing of payments and returns.

Given the sensitivity and criticality of payment processing, the platform required strong monitoring, secure configuration management, reliable integration handling and clear operational supportability.

Solution Implemented

Antelle delivered a secure, Azure-integrated banking payment platform combining file ingestion, API integration, Dataverse-based approval workflows, NatWest payment processing and operational monitoring.

Payment data is ingested from multiple line-of-business systems via a console application, which communicates with Antelle's API layer. Once received, payment records are surfaced into Microsoft Dataverse, where the bank's finance and payments team can review, approve, reject or manage payments through a Power App approval process.

The approval model was designed to be highly configurable, supporting single or dual approval, value-based approval thresholds, segregation of duties, named approver groups and a full audit trail of who approved each payment and when. This provided the bank with a flexible control framework capable of supporting changing operational and governance requirements.

Once approved, payments are submitted to NatWest for processing via API integration. The solution also supports webhook-based responses, automated retry handling, payment status updates, return processing and exception handling, giving the bank improved visibility across the payment lifecycle.

The platform also includes an optional Confirmation of Payee capability. Where configured, this allows checks to be performed before payments are submitted to NatWest, helping identify potential payee issues earlier in the process and reducing the risk of avoidable payment failures.

The resulting solution gave the bank stronger payment controls, improved operational resilience, enhanced monitoring and clearer visibility across outbound payment processing. Antelle continues to provide ongoing support, maintenance and enhancement services for the platform.