Mission to Tallinn: tuum
The fourth stop of our "ICT & FinTech Mission to Tallinn" last week, courtesy of Enterprise Estonia, led us to Tuum, where we were hosted by Co-Founder & Chief Business Officer Rivo Uibo.
Tuum is a next-generation core banking platform provider headquartered in Estonia, positioning itself under the tagline "Banking without limits". The presentation outlined Tuum’s evolution from a custom development house for major Nordic banks into a productized, API-first, modular core banking platform. Uibo emphasized Tuum’s strategic positioning in the "smart middle" of the market—bridging the gap between rigid SaaS solutions and highly complex, developer-heavy toolkits.
Key highlights include the company's proven track record with complex migrations for Tier 1 institutions, massive scalability in the Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) sector, and a unique architectural capability to support Islamic Banking natively alongside conventional banking. The discussion covered Tuum's technical architecture, strategic market expansion into the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and its competitive advantages in handling the full lifecycle of banking products.
1. Company Heritage and Foundation
1.1 The Founders' Story
Uibo, who humorously refers to himself as the "Chief Troublemaker" responsible for "making Tuum happen", described the company's origins not as a typical FinTech startup, but as a team of seasoned banking engineers. The founding team spent 18 years operating as "Icefire," a high-end development shop building critical infrastructure for large financial institutions.
Their track record prior to founding Tuum includes:
- Skype: Developing a system for real-time sales accounting for over 300 million customers.
- OP Financial Group: Creating a variable SME credit line system that determines credit limits based on real-time receivables.
- Estonia Tax and Customs Board: Developing one of the world's most modern account-based tax collection systems.
- Swedbank: Developing a real-time core banking system for what was formerly Hansabank.
1.2 The Shift to Product
After nearly two decades of building "tailor-made" solutions for banks, the founders identified a recurring struggle: banks were trapped by legacy infrastructure that made innovation prohibitively expensive and slow. Tuum was founded in 2019 to productize this deep domain expertise into a modular platform that offers the flexibility of custom code with the speed of a product.
The company is backed by significant investors, including Citi Ventures, Commerz Ventures, and BlackFin Capital Partners, recently closing a €25m Series B round in 2024. They currently employ over 100 people across four hubs.
2. Industry Context: The Necessity of Modernization
2.1 The Legacy Trap
Uibo articulated the fundamental problem facing incumbents: the "Yesterday" model of banking. This model is characterized by:
- Complex and Inflexible Systems: Monolithic architectures that hinder innovation and create vendor lock-in.
- High Costs: 63% of banks are focusing spend on merely extending system life rather than innovating. Maintenance is resource-heavy and upgrades are disruptive.
- Operational Risk: Migrations are viewed as high-risk, complex, and prone to data errors.
2.2 The Shift to Interaction-Point Banking
A key insight from the presentation was the shift in where banking happens. Historically, banking occurred at the bank branch or proprietary app. Today, financial services are moving to the "point of interaction". This includes embedded lending in e-commerce, digital wallets, and accounting software (e.g., Oracle NetSuite) directly integrating financial services.
This shift demands a core system that can:
- Support open data and extensible product catalogs.
- Facilitate real-time data access for immediate decision-making (e.g., credit risk based on live accounts receivable/payable).
- Operate with the lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) via digitization and orchestration.
3. Tuum’s Platform Architecture
3.1 Cloud-Native and Agnostic
Tuum promotes a "Born in the cloud" philosophy, moving away from on-premise, batch-processing monoliths to cloud-native, microservices-based architectures. A critical differentiator is deployment flexibility:
- Cloud Agnostic: The platform runs on AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, or Oracle Cloud.
- Deployment Models: It supports public cloud (SaaS), private cloud, and hybrid deployments to meet specific data sovereignty needs.
- Performance: The system boasts 99.99% uptime and can scale to 1,000 transactions per second (TPS).
3.2 Domain-Driven Design (DDD)
The platform is structured around specific business domains rather than a monolithic block. This modularity allows banks to "pick and choose" functionalities. The core modules include:
- Accounts: Multi-currency, deposits, and savings.
- Lending: Secured, unsecured, and revolving credit for retail and SME.
- Cards: Debit, credit, and virtual card issuing.
- Payments: SWIFT, SEPA (CT, Instant, DD), and internal transfers.
Surrounding these functional modules are support layers for Collateral Management, Debt Management, and a sophisticated "Process Orchestration Engine" that automates workflows between the core and external ecosystem partners (CRM, KYC, AML).
3.3 Native Islamic Banking Capabilities
A significant portion of the presentation was dedicated to Tuum’s capabilities in Islamic Banking. Unlike competitors who might offer "workarounds" for Sharia compliance, Tuum has architected a specific "Islamic Window".
- Structural Integrity: The system handles Profit Sharing Accounts (Mudarabah, Wakalah) and Asset-Backed Lending (Tawarruq) natively.
- Profit Distribution Engine: It features a real-time profit calculation engine that is distinct from interest-based accrual engines, ensuring full compliance with AAOIFI and IFSB standards.
- Hybrid Operations: The architecture allows a bank to run conventional treasury and Islamic treasury side-by-side within a single platform instance.
4. Strategic Use Cases
Tuum positions its platform for four primary strategic implementations:
4.1 Progressive Core Transformation
Rather than a risky "rip-and-replace" strategy, Tuum advocates for "hollowing out" the legacy core.
- Methodology: Banks launch new products or migrate specific lines of business (e.g., SME lending) to Tuum while leaving other operations on the legacy system temporarily.
- Benefit: This minimizes risk and allows for the incremental unlocking of value without operational disruption.
4.2 Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS)
Tuum powers large-scale embedded finance.
- Capabilities: Multi-tenant, API-first architecture allows a single bank license holder to service hundreds of fintechs.
- Scale: Proven by LHV Bank, which serves 200+ fintechs (including Coinbase and Wise) from a single Tuum instance.
4.3 Unified Lending Solutions
The platform supports the full lifecycle of lending—from BNPL to complex SME invoice finance.
- Speed: It automates origination to servicing, capable of reducing loan origination times to as little as 5 minutes.
4.4 Venture Launchpad
For greenfield banks or new market entrants.
- Speed to Market: Enables launching a digital bank in months rather than years.
- Features: Multi-entity and multi-currency support facilitate rapid cross-border expansion.
5. Customer Success Stories
Uibo provided deep-dive analyses of three key clients to demonstrate the platform's versatility and robustness.
5.1 LHV Bank (United Kingdom/Estonia)
The Challenge: LHV required a system capable of handling massive transaction volumes and serving a diverse ecosystem of fintech clients.
The Solution: LHV utilizes Tuum to run Retail Banking, SME Lending, and BaaS from a single instance.
Key Metrics:
- Scale: Serves over 200 fintech partners including Coinbase, Wise, and Paysafe.
- Growth: Achieved 30% loan book growth in Q1 2025.
- Recognition: Won the "Best Core Banking Implementation" at the 2024 Global FinTech Innovation Awards.
- Migration: Uibo detailed the migration of 10 million accounts and huge transaction volumes from LHV's legacy in-house system to Tuum. This was a "big bang" migration where the final delta was moved in a single night with zero downtime for the end-users.
5.2 OP Financial Group (Finland)
The Challenge: OP is a massive cooperative with 150 banks, 13,500 employees, and €150 billion in assets. They needed to modernize their lending without disrupting their massive legacy mainframe infrastructure.
The Solution: Tuum provided a lending module that integrated with the existing ecosystem.
Key Metrics:
- Efficiency: Reduced average loan origination time to 5 minutes.
- Volume: Saw a 49% increase in loan contracts.
- Validation: Won the Celent Model Bank Award 2024 for Core Transformation, proving Tuum is enterprise-ready for Tier 1 banks.
5.3 Multitude Bank (Global/Switzerland)
The Challenge: Multitude (formerly Ferratum) operates in over 20 countries and needed a centralized, agile core to support diverse markets.
The Solution: Tuum serves as the single platform for their operations across 20+ countries.
Key Metrics:
- Speed: Accounts and payments went live in 5 months; fully working POC in 6 months.
- Agility: Offers an "all-in-one" credit and banking solution via mobile app (Sweep Bank).
6. Market Position and Competitive Landscape
Uibo offered a candid assessment of the competitive landscape, specifically addressing Mambu and Thought Machine.
6.1 vs. Mambu
- Critique: Tuum views Mambu as a pure SaaS solution that is often "too simple" for complex banking needs. Mambu is excellent for micro-lending or simple neobanks but struggles with the complex, multi-layered requirements of established banks or sophisticated corporate lending.
- Tuum's Edge: Tuum offers the architectural depth required for complex credit risk management, corporate accounts, and intricate treasury operations that simple SaaS players miss.
6.2 vs. Thought Machine
- Critique: Thought Machine is described as a "toolbox" or "framework" rather than a ready-to-use product. It requires a bank to hire "an army of Python developers" to build the bank on top of the engine.
- Tuum's Edge: Tuum provides "smart Lego blocks." It is configurable (no code/low code for business rules) but comes with pre-built banking logic (accruals, payment rails, ledgering) so banks don't have to build basic banking functionality from scratch.
6.3 Tuum's "Smart Middle"
Tuum positions itself as the synthesis of these two worlds:
- Configurable: Business owners can define products without IT intervention (like Mambu).
- Powerful: The architecture supports high complexity and scalability (like Thought Machine).
- Deployment: Unlike rigid SaaS, Tuum can be deployed on private clouds, which is essential for data sovereignty in regions like the Middle East and parts of Asia.
7. Global Expansion Strategy
Tuum is aggressively expanding beyond its Nordic roots.
7.1 Geographic Roadmap
- Nordics & UK: "Home territory." Fully established and scaling.
- Central Europe: Expanding footprint (e.g., Germany, Switzerland).
- Middle East: A major strategic focus. The demographics (expat vs. local populations in UAE vs. Saudi) and the oil-driven economic boom make this a prime market for digital transformation. Tuum has established a subsidiary in Abu Dhabi to serve this region locally.
- Southeast Asia: The next frontier. Tuum sees similarities between the fragmented, high-growth nature of SE Asia and its current markets.
7.2 The "Local" Philosophy
Uibo emphasized that banking is a trust business. Tuum does not believe in "flying in and flying out." Their strategy involves establishing local entities (as done in the UK and UAE) and hiring local experts who understand the specific regulatory and cultural nuances of the market.
8. Q&A and Technical Insights
During the Q&A session, several critical technical and operational topics were addressed.
8.1 Hybrid Cloud & Migration Realities
Addressing a question about hybrid environments, Uibo acknowledged that banks do not move to the cloud overnight. Tuum supports a "Cloud Journey" where the application layer might move to the cloud while sensitive databases remain on-premise temporarily to satisfy risk/security teams, before eventually migrating fully.
8.2 The "Big Bang" Migration
Rivo detailed the LHV migration to prove that "Big Bang" migrations—often feared in the industry—are possible with the right architecture. By running parallel systems and utilizing "delta migrations" (moving only changed data), Tuum migrated millions of accounts in a single night with zero service interruption. This creates a compelling counter-narrative to the industry fear of core replacement.
8.3 Cost of Ownership
In response to inquiries about cost structures compared to legacy systems, Rivo highlighted that legacy systems often require "triple the cost"—maintenance of the old, building of the new, and the syncing of the two. Tuum’s modular approach allows for specific business lines to be migrated individually, creating an ROI case for that specific line of business (e.g., growing the SME loan book) rather than trying to justify a billion-dollar total bank overhaul upfront.
9. Conclusion
The presentation successfully positioned Tuum as a mature, enterprise-ready alternative to both legacy providers and first-generation FinTech cores. By leveraging the founders' deep engineering heritage, Tuum has built a platform that balances the need for speed (Venture Launchpad) with the need for complexity and scale (Tier 1 Core Transformation).
With verified success stories in LHV and OP Financial Group, and a clear product differentiation strategy (Islamic Banking, Domain-Driven Design, deployment flexibility), Tuum appears well-positioned to capture significant market share in the ongoing wave of global banking digitization, particularly in their target expansion markets of the Middle East and Asia.
Norbert Gehrke
