How Greenfield Innovation Is Powering Paragon’s Digital Future

FF News | Fintech Finance
FF News | Fintech FinanceMay 13, 2026

Why It Matters

Spring demonstrates how legacy banks can use modular core platforms to launch fintech‑grade products quickly, reshaping competition and customer expectations in retail banking.

Key Takeaways

  • Paragon partnered with Mambu since 2020 for core banking
  • Mambu enabled Paragon’s robust savings and development finance platform
  • Paragon launched “Spring,” a greenfield digital‑first consumer product
  • Spring focuses on hassle‑free UX to reduce perceived choice overload
  • Agile partnership accelerated delivery, boosting confidence in digital transformation

Summary

Paragon, a FTSE 250 specialist lender, has teamed with Mambu since 2020 to modernize its core banking, initially powering its development‑finance and savings offerings.

The partnership proved its reliability, allowing Paragon to scale its savings portfolio and later identify a market gap for a direct‑to‑consumer digital product. Leveraging Mambu’s cloud‑native engine, the bank built “Spring,” a greenfield platform designed to attract proactive savers and simplify the user experience.

As a senior executive put it, “Spring is really the cornerstone of our digital transformation… it has to feel hassle‑free.” The product was launched quickly through an agile, supplier‑collaborative approach, drawing on customer insights to shape the app’s journey and features.

The launch signals that traditional banks can rapidly pivot to fintech‑style offerings, reinforcing the value of modular core systems and setting a benchmark for other institutions seeking swift, customer‑centric digital upgrades.

Original Description

In a rapidly changing financial landscape, legacy institutions are finding new ways to compete through greenfield digital transformations. In this interview from The Fintech Show, Karishma Jaycee (Mambu), Derek Sprawling (Paragon Bank), and Imogen Gurney (Paragon Bank) discuss the journey behind "Spring," Paragon's first direct-to-consumer digital savings product.
The panel explores how a robust core banking engine provided the foundation for a hassle-free user experience designed to convert passive savers into proactive ones. They detail the shift from traditional specialist lending into a digitized, front-to-back consumer offering, highlighting how customer insights and agile partnerships allowed the bank to build and launch a new brand in record time. Discover how this transformation has created a new blueprint for scalable, reliable, and customer-centric banking in the UK.

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