Case Study: NatWest Boxed achieves 90% cost allocation and 45% cloud cost savings with Datadog Cloud Cost Management

How NatWest Boxed uses Datadog to manage cloud costs across enterprise teams

NatWest Boxed is a UK Banking-as-a-Service provider (a 2022 joint venture of NatWest Group and Vodeno) that runs a Kubernetes-first, multi-federated, multi-cloud platform. While this architecture gave engineering teams autonomy and speed, it made resource consumption, cost visibility, and accurate allocation difficult—existing FinOps tools were manual or lacked needed metrics, so NatWest Boxed needed a solution that let teams manage their own costs while providing full transparency across the business.

NatWest Boxed deployed Datadog’s Cloud Cost Management, leveraging Kubernetes and multicloud support, container cost attribution, dynamic tagging from their developer portal, and realtime cost alerts integrated into existing workflows. The implementation improved cost allocation from ~50% to over 90%, delivered an estimated 45% in cost savings through better forecasting and discounting, and established stronger budget governance, team accountability, and a scalable FinOps practice.

NatWest Boxed

Antoine Dao

Engineering Manager