About Icon Solutions

Icon Solutions is a fintech with a proven track record in designing and implementing payment systems. Icon was founded on the belief that financial services organisations should be able to lead their own transformation, and that by harnessing state-of-the-art technology, they can do it in an accelerated, structured and low-risk way.

Global payments with IPF

IPF - a flexible and safe platform to support any payment type and is used across the entire payments processing value chain of initiation, execution, clearing and settlement. IPF is now being leveraged by financial services organisations in 20 countries, spanning 4 continents.

Unique position in the industry

Since 2009, Icon have been shaping trends rather than following them and building a level of expertise that can only be gained by helping to define and deliver some of the most critical solutions across the banking sector. It is because of this unique position that we can guide effective transformation strategies.

Investment in Icon Solutions

Recognising the evolving possibilities for IPF, several of our Tier 1 banking clients have become investors in our company. This has enabled us to accelerate innovation while maintaining our independence and a commitment to serving the unique priorities of each of our clients.

Committed to giving back

We don’t measure ourselves by the success of our work alone, we also want to make a valuable contribution to society. To date Icon has donated over £500,000 to charitable causes and are committed to reducing environmental impact and achieving net zero emissions.

ABOUT

The Icon Story

2009

Founding

After the 2008 crisis, banks cut budgets and turned to offshore IT. Starting an onshore consultancy in 2009 seemed risky, but with rising pressure on banking systems to simplify IT, stay compliant and continue to innovate, expert guidance was essential. Icon’s founders, Ben Hallifax, Tom Kelleher, and Darren Capehorn set out to be that trusted guide: demystifying, educating clients through this transformation, all without losing the offshore benefits, and so Icon Solutions was born.

2012

Expertise

Icon developed a reputation as a trusted partner, helping global banks manage the cost, complexity, and risk of payments innovation. In parallel, Icon’s corporate ethos which aimed to make a difference beyond the world of IT by giving back to our communities attracted some of the most talented people in the industry. Success breeds success - clients came to Icon knowing they had the high calibre individuals to help them solve their most complex challenges – whilst more high-calibre industry experts joined the company to be part of this approach to delivering excellence.

2016

IPF

Having founded our services efforts on helping banks simplify their IT solutions, we went on to challenge the foundation of payments processing capabilities, with the belief that banks needed to be able to innovate on their own terms – not a vendor’s. Our experience of using these solutions, coupled with a deep understanding of the domain requirements, led us to create the Icon Payments Framework (IPF). IPF enables a new approach to innovation, empowering banks to accelerate the evolution of their payments infrastructure while staying in complete control.

Today

Trusted partner

Today, IPF is trusted by Tier 1 banks across the globe, including BNP Paribas, Citi, NatWest and UBS. It provides out of the box non-functional capabilities, such as scalability, integrity and robustness, which allows the Bank to create their own unique solutions. This flexibility combines with an international team of payments, architecture, data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts, who help clients navigate every step of their transformation journey.

A TRUE SOLUTIONS COMPANY

Helping with every aspect of the transformation journey

The essential focus of Icon is to guide and support financial services organisations in their transformation journey, from strategy and requirements to design and implementation. We have the expertise, accelerators and technology to help customers at any given point in that process:

IPF: Our payments framework that enables controlled, accelerated and safe transformation

Payments Consulting Services: More than 16 years of experience in designing and delivering state-of-the-art payment systems

Architecture, Data and AI Services: Pragmatic technology strategies and solution designs, better management of data and exploitation of AI

NatWest recognised the advantage of building in-house and selected IPF to accelerate delivery and empower its engineering teams to focus on high value integrations and innovation. By embracing IPF's capabilities and adopting a future-focused approach, NatWest has raised the bar for excellence in financial services.

Ian Povey

NatWest Group

Icon focus on providing solutions to highly complex problems through quality skillsets in the people they provide. During my time working with Icon, I can be assured of whatever challenge I ask them to help solve, they do so in a transparent, trusted and professional way working alongside our colleagues to deliver great results.

Tier 1 bank

Partners

Partnering with specialists within the payments industry

We combine our proven payments solution, IPF and decades of global payments implementation expertise with handpicked partners. We believe in collaboration, and our framework approach allows us to work with the best partners in the industry.

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Values

The Icon Values

Icon has been built on a set of five fundamental values that are embodied in everything we do.

Fight Complexity

We strive to find the simple answer – whether it be in architecture or coding, or even in our internal processes. Over-complexity is not welcome at Icon.

Celebrate Honesty

We represent you, our client, and we tell you what you need to hear. We focus on the project and the customer, not on our own interests.

Out-do yourself

We target a legacy of excellence – we are all about doing the very best we can. And with a team full of great people, their best is really very good indeed.

Take Ownership

Both individually, as a team, and as a company, we don’t let things drop. If something needs doing, we’ll take it on, and see it through to completion. In short: we own the outcome.

Enjoy IT

We are enthusiastic about what we do. Icon people turn up to work with a spring in their step and are genuinely excited to get stuck in.

ANNUAL REPORT

Icon Solutions Annual Report 2023-24

In 2023-24 Icon has maintained strong performance, continuing to put customers at the forefront of payments transformation with our product, IPF, and the work of our Services team. We are also proud that our support of the causes closest to us has remained steadfast through the Icon Foundation and our partnerships with grassroots initiatives.

Icon Solutions Annual Report 2023-24

Download our Annual Report to understand how Icon has continued to put banks at the forefront of payments transformation

Carbon Neutral

Proud to be a certified CarbonNeutral® Company

Carbon neutrality is achieved by calculating a carbon footprint and off-setting it to zero through a combination of in-house efficiency measures, renewable energy and external emissions reductions projects.

CarbonNeutral certification means that a company has followed The CarbonNeutral Protocol to make a clear, credible, transparent claim of their carbon neutral action.

ESG Report

ICON FOUNDATION

Our ethos

Our involvement with charities isn't to tick a CSR box, it's at the heart of who we are. Put simply, Icon's ethos is to go above and beyond and we are committed to giving back, not just financially, but also by investing effort into ensuring that the money they receive is truly used to create sustainable improvements for the causes close to our hearts. In an interview, one of our founders put it very succinctly when he was asked ‘How do you justify to your staff and investors that you give so much to charity’, he replied, ‘how do you justify that you do not?'

Some of the charities and initiatives we continue to support include: WeSeeHope; CarbonNeutral®; Peatland and Forest Conservation and Polka Theatre.

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Our Team

Meet the people at Icon

Everyone in the Icon team brings a wealth of expertise from the industry and ability to keep pace with a market that is constantly evolving.

Our Team

Featured RESOURCES

Thought leadership

Explore our selection of resources - insights, case studies, whitepapers and more, designed to help financial services organisations navigate the payments landscape.

See all Resources

Blog