Financial Services

Hydrogen has been providing Business Transformation talent to Financial Services organisations globally for more than two decades since the time BT specialists with niche industry skills and cross functional capabilities came onto our radar. The average tenure of the consultants in our team is six years, meaning our clients benefit from our personal networks of candidates. Changes to legislation and increased automation have rapidly altered the traditional contracting landscape and, as change has become a constant within FS, many companies today prefer to retain change specialists on a permanent basis, with change management becoming a vital business function.

The constant change in FS is mainly due to advances in technology driving consumer habits, particularly in Banking and Payments, as well as changes to legislation, such as IR35. We are also seeing new challenges coming from emerging FinTech's. Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic have flooded the market with candidates over the last year, and while the demand is there for the right skill sets and experience, the volume of direct applicants is making it harder for organisations to find the right talent.

From fully managed and packaged solutions to individual subject matter experts, we help businesses successfully deliver their transformation requirements. We have also met the IR35 challenges head on by supplying contractors outside of IR35 to minimise the risk to clients. Our high-quality service provides clients with outstanding individuals to help change and grow their businesses and gives candidates the chance to take control of their own careers.

Key features:

• Flexible pricing options to suit your needs: our standard rate card provides a clear and transparent pricing structure

• Access to our global community of contractors with cutting edge expertise

• On average, our contractors are onboarded in just nine days and extended seven times, with the average tenure being 22 months

• All contractors are pre-screened and vetted as requested

• An experienced account team for the project duration and a dedicated account manager to provide a single point of contact

Why you’ll love it:

• Ability to rapidly ramp up and scale down resources as required

• Cost-efficient way to run projects without compromising on quality

• Full support to resource your projects across multiple verticals and geographic locations

• Minimal overall impact to your hiring manager community and current resources

• We can onboard the best talent quickly, speeding up your delivery and return on investment

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Key features:

• Choose from several tailored packages to suit your needs

• On-site dedicated service, and an overall programme management team, to ensure the best quality of service

• Engaged global talent pool across multiple verticals and geographic locations

• Candidates are fully vetted, and background checked

Why you’ll love it:

• Hassle free, we take away the pain

• One point of contact for your talent needs – save time briefing multiple agencies

• Reduced overall agency spend

• One easy system for timesheets and project schedule approval

• A fully compliant solution

Key features:

• More cost-effective end-to-end solutions, compared to bigger consultancies, because we have direct access to the talent

• Our pool of trusted advisors, Delivery Assurance Directors (DADs), ensure every part of your project is optimised to ensure success

• Dedicated project delivery team

• On-going administration and compliance management

• Regular progress review meetings

• Project off-boarding and IP transfer

Why you’ll love it:

• Direct access to the best talent in the market, built up over 20 years

• Average savings of 36% against leading consultancies

• A completely personalised solution for your unique needs

• A scalable solution that's swift to implement, so you can ramp up and down quickly

• Guaranteed knowledge transfers to you can maintain BAU

• On-site dedicated service and programme management led by industry-leading specialists (DADs)

​Key features:

• You have one specialist point of contact at Hydrogen

• Using innovative, customised search methods, we source and secure the market’s best talent

• Searches conducted by a consultant and dedicated research team, to ensure a thorough search and all relevant candidates in the market are spoken to

• Weekly updates on your search

• Option to conduct market mapping and report on your brand perception in the market

• Staggered pricing solutions, in line with different hiring phases

Why you’ll love it:

• You gain preferred access to the best pools of active and passive candidates in your market

• Working exclusively with us, we will control your message in the market and promote your brand successfully

• We’ll work to tighter deadlines due to the increased resources that can be committed to the search

• Ability to spread the cost across a number of weeks or months

By taking the time to understand your unique company culture, ambitions and needs we can ensure that we can find the best talent for your business. We use innovative, customised search methods and off-grid insights, to build engaged candidate pools, establishing long-term relationships. Our approach to recruitment also helps protect and enhance your brand, as we go to market as your ambassador, promoting you as the employer of choice.

Key features:

• Full brief to understand your requirements

• Using our market leading CRM and search tools across multiple platforms, we tailor our packages to suit our clients and reach talent that other agencies cannot

• Experienced delivery teams and a dedicated account manager to provide a single point of contact

• Regular review meetings ensuring two-way communication

Why you’ll love it:

• We take a consulting approach to ensure we are attracting the right talent and you are not missing out to competitors

• Access to best-in-class talent – not just those who are actively looking

• One point of contact for your talent needs – no need to use different agencies for different levels or roles

• We’ll share our unique insights and market trends to shape your talent strategy

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Key features:

• We can migrate an existing direct workforce to our payroll solution in just 28 days

• Comprehensive background and education checks as standard on all incoming contractors

• Contractors receive seamless on-boarding and enjoy the financial security that comes from contracting through a PLC

• Easy-to-use online systems for screening, timesheets and contract management

• Supportive of IR35 status for contractors

Why you’ll love it:

• Mitigated risk - contractors are insured under Hydrogen’s group policy

• We ensure contractors are compliant with any regulatory changes relating to contingent workforces

• Reduced onboarding time: your contractors receive a more positive, consistent experience

• You receive just one monthly, consolidated invoice for your entire directly hired contractor workforce

• We’ll advise on potential cost savings you can make on your contractor workforce

The challenge:

The banks vision is to be the best bank for customers and to achieve this they need to provide a first-class digital experience for every customer, in a way that is secure, convenient and personalised to them.

Our solution:

We delivered a team of 40 digital specialists, including Programme Managers, Project Managers, Business Analysts, UX/UI Designers, UX/UI Developers, UX Architects, UX Consultants and testers supported by a PMO function.

The outcome:

• The redesign of the website was delivered within the required timescales

• Hydrogen was retained as the bank’s preferred supplier for digital transformation projects

• The platform is now the largest and top-rated digital bank in the UK

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The challenge:

Following an acquisition, our client, a UK Retail & Commercial Bank, needed to build a new in-house data warehouse for management information and reporting across the whole organisation. Due to dissatisfaction with the service from their existing technology provider and a need to cut spending, they required a partner who could reduce costs and deliver the specialist expertise to implement this.

Our solution:

To provide a team of expert consultants capable of delivering a fully functioning data warehouse. Data sources were to be staged in Teradata with IBM Information Services toolset used to Extract, Transform & Load for the new data warehouse.

We delivered a team of 32 locally based data warehouse specialists, including:

• 1 Technical Delivery Lead,

• 1 Lead Data Architect,

• 4 Project/Release Managers,

• 14 ETL Developers,

• 8 Data Modellers/Data Analysts

• and 4 Test Analysts.

A robust data governance framework was put in place. Due to the project’s success, a second phase was established to develop the capabilities of the data warehouse and train staff to maintain and develop it.

The outcome:

• The internal team were on site within just four weeks of receiving the RFP

• The initial project was completed in 12 months, within budget

• Delivered a legacy without dependency by embedding the newly developed processes into the business

• The client saved 48% compared to the solution with their existing consultancy

• After successful delivery, Hydrogen was retained to provide a second phase

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The challenge:

Following a big acquisition, our client, a British Retail & Commercial Bank, needed testing support for the end of their migration programme due to a lack of in-house expertise. The scope covered numerous software platforms across their enterprise estate and an expert partner was required to deliver.

Our solution:

We provided a managed service team of 15 who delivered the project using Agile Scrum methodology.

The team was led by a Programme Manager and included:

• 5 Project Managers,

• 8 Business Analysts,

• and 5 PMO specialists.

They were able to rapidly scale and flex in size, ensuring the client only paid for what they needed. This also allowed us to quickly overcome hurdles in sprints, completing the migration ahead of schedule.

The outcome:

• 27% cost saving

• 2.5 weeks to mobilise

• 1 happy customer

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