The speedboat model
How banks launch independent digital brands fast
19 August 2026 • 5 min read
Executive summary
A speedboat model gives an established bank a legally and operationally independent digital brand, funded to move at its own pace and capture new market segments fast.
A speedboat model gives an established bank a legally and operationally independent digital brand, funded to move at its own pace and capture new market segments fast.
New10, ABN AMRO's SME lending speedboat, reached launch in ten months using exactly this model.
Introduction
Launching an independent brand
Some banks don't just want a digital front end, they want an entirely new, independent business that can move at start-up speed.
That's the speedboat model: a new entity with shared ownership but full legal and operational independence, funded by the parent organisation to launch fast and capture market segments the parent's core business cannot reach.
This article explains how the speedboat model works, and how ABN AMRO used it to take New10, its SME lending business, from concept to a fully digital lender in ten months.
What is the speedboat model?
A speedboat is a new entity with shared ownership but full legal and operational independence from its parent organisation. The parent funds the launch, giving the new business the capital and credibility of an established institution, but the spin-off builds its own technology, product, and operating model from scratch.
This independence is what makes the model attractive for capturing new market segments quickly. Freed from the parent's legacy constraints, product roadmap, and internal governance, a speedboat can build and launch with the speed and focus of a start-up.
Three elements make this possible:
1. Full legal and operational independence from the parent organisation
The speedboat owns its own governance, technology decisions and roadmap, not the sponsor-tied core of a shared legacy fintech. It isn't waiting on the parent's internal sign-off or slotted into an existing product plan, so it can move at start-up speed rather than the pace of an established institution.
2. Funded launch, with the parent's capital and credibility behind it
Unlike a greenfield build, which typically launches on external VC funding before a licence is even confirmed, the spin-off isn't starting cold. It launches backed by the parent's capital and the trust customers already place in an established institution, giving it a funded runway and a credible name from day one.
3. Freedom to build a differentiated product without legacy constraints
With no legacy stack or existing product roadmap to work around, the speedboat model can design its technology and product for the specific market segment it's targeting, rather than adapting infrastructure built for a different purpose. This differs from a dual-core model run on the edge, which shares select functions with the existing system by design.
What does it take to make a speedboat work?
Independence only pays off if the new entity's technology can move as fast as its ambitions. A speedboat built on the same legacy stack as its parent inherits the same limitations it was created to escape, just with extra operational overhead.
This is why composable, API-first architecture matters in this model. A modern core lets a speedboat integrate the best-of-class partners for its specific market, rather than inherit its partners’ vendor contracts, and move through regulatory approval and product iteration at genuine start-up speed. It’s building fresh, rather than replacing an existing core through a full core migration.
"Mambu offers us scalability, flexibility and speed to market at a fraction of the cost of traditional core systems"
New10's Co-Founder & CTO
Ten months to launch: New10
New10, the SME lending speedboat from Dutch bank ABN AMRO, was created to give small and medium enterprises fast, fully digital credit decisions. The team needed a modern, cloud-native core that could support rapid build and launch inside a highly regulated banking environment.
Using Mambu's API-enabled core banking engine, New10 integrated best-of-class systems to focus on customer-facing value rather than infrastructure.
The business went from concept to launch in 10 months, delivering 15-minute digital credit decisions and disbursing loans within two working days. Within six months of launch, New10 had acquired over 2,000 accounts, 65% of them new to ABN AMRO (Mambu customer story, New10).
This clip explains how New10 went from concept to a live SME lender in 10 months.
Conclusion
A proven route to independent growth
The speedboat model proves that independence and speed are not mutually exclusive, provided the technology underneath can keep up. New10 reached launch in ten months and brought genuinely new customers to ABN AMRO's business, not just a new front end for existing ones.
For banks weighing whether to build a digital arm inside their existing infrastructure or set it free, the speedboat model offers a proven route to capturing a market segment the parent business cannot reach alone.
See how New10 launched an independent SME lender in 10 months
Explore how ABN AMRO's spin-off used a composable core to move at start-up speed.
FAQs
Find quick answers to the most commonly asked questions about this topic below.
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