bankingtech.com

Headquartered in Helsinki, it has more than 200,000 customers largely in Finland and Germany, which consist of the self-employed, sole traders, freelancers and small business owners. It offers them a business payment account powered with Mastercard, invoicing tools and bookkeeping capabilities, promising to save them “up to ten hours a month on time spent managing business finances”.

The Holvi platform is a bespoke build, and is essentially a core banking system with integration built into the various payments ecosystems around Europe. The technology stack comprises a proprietary Javascript UI framework, along with Backbone.js, CSS and HTML at the front-end and Python, Django and PostgreSQL at the back.

The entire infrastructure is hosted in the cloud with Amazon Web Services (AWS) from a data centre in Ireland.

Iam Bank
A challenger bank from the US that describes itself the “Apple store” of banking. It targets millennials with a digital and “brick and mortar” banking proposition.

Its products will include micro-loans, micro-investments and cashback. For the latter, Iam Bank intends to create 21,000+ partnerships with retailers.

In spring 2017, it announced its intention to roll out free learning and therapy-based financial workshops across the UK (and also the US). Around the same time it was also looking to buy a small UK bank, building society or a credit union with a high street presence.

ICBC UK
A subsidiary of China’s heavyweight, The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). It was granted a wholesale banking licence in autumn 2014.

ICICI Bank UK
A subsidiary of India’s second largest banking group, ICICI. The bank has been operating in the UK since 2003 offering consumer, business, corporate and investment banking services, as well as money transfers to India.

The bank is authorised by the PRA and FCA.

ICICI Bank UK operates from seven locations in the UK and a branch each in Belgium and Germany. It has around 250,000 customers in the UK.

For its technology, the bank uses Infosys’ Finacle core banking system (as part of a group-wide roll-out). On the risk management and reporting side, it has Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX solution.

Koto Card

Set to launch sometime in 2020, Koto users will be able to apply for a free prepaid card (as with most of challenger banks), but they will also be able to borrow up to £1,000 in credit.

If customers want to borrow under £400, they can do so in one go by paying 25p each day they use the credit plus a monthly fee which is 1% of the borrowed amount. Or, they can spread out credit of up to £1,000 over a 3-24 month period with a re-payment plan that includes a £10 monthly fee.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)-approved consumer credit service was co-founded by Misha Rogalskiy, the brains behind Ukraine’s Monobank, and is headed up by CEO and chief product officer Rob Escott, who comes from an eight-year stint at Vanquis Bank.

LHV Bank
Estonia-based LHV Bank entered the UK market in spring 2018, following the regulatory approval to establish a full-service bank branch. This is LHV’s first foray outside its home market.

The bank’s strategic focus is on fintechs (e.g. TransferWise and Coinbase are on its customer list).

LHV Bank was established in the late 1990s, and is a universal bank. It is the fourth largest bank in Estonia, employing 360 people and serving 133,000 clients. It has just two physical branches in Estonia and conducts most of its business via digital channels. It first tested a crypto-wallet back in 2014.

For its technology, the bank uses an in-house developed core banking system.

Lintel Bank
A start-up waiting for a licence. The bank will be targeting migrant workers and students in the UK. It will offer paid-for current accounts, money transfers, personal and SME loans, and mortgages. The applicants will be able to set up a bank account quickly, with most of the process (including checking personal information) completed before the person arrives in the UK.

On the IT side, the bank says it’s keen to use off-the-shelf software that can be easily deployed (and easily replaced with a better alternative at a later stage).

Longevity Bank

Set to launch in 2020, Longevity Bank is targeting the over 60s – starting with users in the UK and Switzerland.

Backed by Hong Kong-based venture capital firm Deep Knowledge Ventures, the neobank intends to expand across Europe, Singapore, Japan and the US by 2022.

Longevity Bank’s co-founder and Deep Knowledge partner Sergey Balasanyan tells FinTech Futures that the neobank “will initially set itself up as a bank attracting net-new customers, but the goal is to also become a third-party provider (TPP) to major banks.”

Focusing on agetech and healthtech, the challenger says one of its features will include offering “tangible” rewards to people just for being healthy.

Through its hybrid profit model, Longevity Bank plans to buck the trend of non-profitable challenger banks by using revenue streams from traditional banking products such as lending and deposits to “supplement” its neobank activities.

LQID Bank
London-based challenger London waiting for a banking licence (as of August 2018). It’s the trading name of Shop & Finance Ltd.

LQID Bank says it aims to “bridge the gap between digital and high street challengers using technology that hasn’t been seen in the UK before”. It will provide consumer and business banking services.

Its motto is to make life and banking “smoother”, with “simple and straightforward” products, “meaningful” budget tracking, local bank services and customer services.

LQID will have a digital and physical presence (via a network of “community branches”).

Marcus
A newcomer from the US. Marcus is a digital finance platform launched by Goldman Sachs in 2016 in the US. Named after Marcus Goldman (one of the firm’s founders), the platform provides consumer loans of up to $30,000 for periods of two to six years. It aims to rival the likes of Lending Club, SoFi and Prosper.

In September 2017, Goldman Sachs unveiled its plans to move into the UK retail banking market with Marcus, stating with savings and deposits. Loans might be added at a later stage. It will be a greenfield site, although Goldman Sachs does not exclude a possibility of buying an established book of deposits, if the opportunity came its way.

For its technology, Marcus uses Infosys’ Finacle core banking platform.

Masthaven
An established mortgage specialist, Masthaven Finance, received a banking licence in late 2016.

Masthaven offers lending and mortgages as well as savings products to retail customers and SMEs that struggle to get service from mainstream banks and lenders.

For its tech, Masthaven implemented a banking system from DPR Consulting. This is a new product, front-to-back office, aimed at providing a single, integrated solution for savings and lending ops. Masthaven is among its first takers.

In spring 2019, the bank completed a £60 million equity investment from Värde Partners.

Metro Bank
When Metro Bank opened for business in spring 2010, it became Britain’s first new high street bank in over 150 years.

The brainchild of US entrepreneur Vernon Hill, Metro Bank is a full-service banking entity, which aims to attract the disillusioned clients of established financial institutions.

At the outset, the bank placed a major focus on physical branches – or “stores”. They are open seven days a week, and have longer working hours than other high street banks. They also have coin-counting machines and are dog friendly.

Customers applying for a current account in store can start using it the same day and get their back card and chequebook printed there and then.

The model was largely based on a similar venture created by Hill in the US, Commerce Bancorp (acquired by TD Bank in 2007), which gained the nickname of “McBank” as Hill applied his knowledge of the fast-food chain business to the bank.

Metro Bank’s co-founder Anthony Thomson left in 2012 to set up rival Atom Bank (see above).

Metro Bank has implemented Backbase’s Omnichannel Banking Platform for its digital banking front-end. It also uses FIS/Sungard’s Ambit Asset Liability Management solution, and outsources its mortgage processing to BancTec.

For back office processing, the bank has been using Temenos’ T24 core banking system from the outset. The system is supplied on a hosted/application service provider (ASP) basis, with Metro Bank being Temenos’ first ASP customer in the UK.

The bank also rolled out Glory Global Solutions’ Vertera 6G teller cash recyclers (TCRs) across its stores.

Metro Bank is also connected directly to the Faster Payments system.

In February 2019, it became one of the three recipients of the funds of Pool A Capability and Innovation Fund, set up by the RBS Banking Competition Remedies. It received £120 million.

In June 2019, the bank selected Artesian Solutions’s Artesian Risk and Compliance Hub (ARCH) for KYC.

Mettle
A standalone SME digital entity, Mettle, was launched in November 2018 by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and its subsidiary NatWest.

Mettle offers a business current account with a sort code, account number and payment card; instant invoicing; and the option to add receipts to transactions and track expenses from a phone.

Mettle is not a bank, but operates as an agent under an e-money licence held by PrePay Solutions (PPS). Any deposit placed with Mettle will not be Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) protected.

The project was done with the participation from consultancy firms Capco and 11:FS.

MoneeMint (formerly Ummah Finance)
London-based MoneeMint (formerly Ummah Finance) was founded in 2016 by Hassan Waqar and Martin Luther Maramba.

Initially, Ummah Finance aimed at the UK’s Muslim population (about three million people, or 5.4% of the total UK population), planning to become the first UK-based mobile Islamic bank.

However, it has expanded its scope since to focus on socially responsible and ethical banking, and adopted a new brand identity in September 2018: MoneeMint. The firm took into consideration feedback from prospective investors and clients, Waqar explains, and felt “there was a need to launch a more modern and fresh-looking brand for us to get the right message out”.

MoneeMint’s “fresh banking experience” is aimed at millennials in the UK and Europe.

It says it will be Europe’s first ethical digital bank. To begin with, it will offer prepaid products and services.

In autumn 2018, MoneeMint secured undisclosed “strategic funding” from Ground One Ventures, a UK-based private investment firm.

For its tech, MoneeMint picked the Digibanc enterprise banking suite from Codebase Technologies.

Monese
Monese was originally launched targeting expatriates and immigrants. It says it is “building the world’s most inclusive banking service and provider of 100% mobile current accounts”. As of spring 2019, it had over one million customers.

People can open bank accounts anywhere in Europe on their smartphone with Monese in as little as three minutes, Monese says. The account comes with a monthly charge of £4.95.

The bank does not hold a commercial licence, meaning that at this time it can’t offer credit or loans. It offers low-rate international money transfers as well as the ability to hold a number of currencies in the same account. In-store transactions, Monese says, are free of charge, but ATM services and transfers abroad come with a charge of 50p.

It inked a partnership deal with PayPal, to enable its clients to easily manage and use their Monese and PayPal accounts together.

In autumn 2018, Monese secured a $60 investment in its Series B funding round and announced the expansion into business banking.

Monese initially used Contis Group’s white-label infrastructure to provide bank accounts, transfer and card payment services, but has now switched to another provider, PrePay Solutions (PPS).

Monzo
Monzo was granted a full banking licence in early April 2017. It positions itself as a “mobile first” bank and has an online community forum for its users to “come to help build the bank of the future”. Monzo offers a current account with a contactless debit card and a mobile banking app. The mobile app’s standout features are intelligent notifications, instant balance updates and financial management.

In 2019, it trialled Monzo Plus, a premium service which charged users up to £13 per month for product bundles which included additional ATM withdrawals, travel insurance, airport lounge access and merchandise discounts. But the product was scrapped within five months and the 11-person team in charge of it replaced.

In H2 2018, Monzo closed a funding round of £85 million and announced plans to raise further £20 million, and to launch a business current account. The following year, it announced a £113 million funding taking its valuation to £2 billion, as it aimed to expand to the US.

It partnered with Thames Card Technology for debit card production and personalisation.

For banking ops, the bank decided to build its own platform. Technology used is mainly open source: Linux, Apache Cassandra distributed database (used by the likes of Apple and Twitter), Google’s Go (golang) programming language at the back-end and PostgreSQL relational database.

The infrastructure is hosted on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. The bank’s two data centers are for interacting with Mastercard’s systems.

GPS is the processor for Monzo.

Niyah

Challenger banking app Niyah launched in the UK in January 2020 for the Muslim community. It says it’s “the first fintech Islamic banking app and ethical financial marketplace platform” to launch in the country.

The app is Shariah-compliant, which means the app will, for example, exclude investments which derive a majority of their income from the sale of alcohol, pork products, pornography, gambling, or military weapons.

The platform hinges on its interest-free products, which include digital bank accounts, debit cards, investments, and small and medium enterprise (SME) financing.

Its aim is to provide “a lifestyle-focused banking experience to the 3.4 million Muslims in the UK”, a population which the challenger says is “financially isolated” and has “had access to a very limited offering” until now.

The challenger is designed to plug into “existing financial service providers” so it can offer the Muslim community what is on offer for everyone, but through its own ethical financial marketplace which makes the services Shariah-compliant.

“Niyah is community-focused, we have spoken to hundreds of customers about their current pain points on banking and finance,” says the co-founder and head of Islamic banking at Niyah, Safdar Alam, who feels “a one size fits all approach” no longer works.

N26
German-based mobile challenger bank N26 entered the UK market in H1 2018.

UK customers receive a GBP current account with an individual N26 account number, sort code and Mastercard.

The firm says the account opening process is “completely paperless”, and can be done from a smartphone. Within the app, customers can lock and unlock their card with one tap. Customers also receive real-time push notifications with each transaction made with their account.

N26 has been taking its business fully across 17 European countries, including Spain, Italy, Greece, Ireland and Slovakia. It also plans to enter the US in H2 2019, and raised $300 million in a Series D funding round in early 2019 to make it happen.

N26 works with TransferWise on cross-border money transfers. It also partnered with Raisin – to enable N26 customers to save money and choose interest rates from banks across Europe. It also integrated Vaamo into the N26 app allowed customers to invest their money and manage a customised investment portfolio.

In June 2019, N26 introduced MoneyBeam for its UK users, allowing them to send money instantly to fellow N26 users.

For its back office processing, N26 uses Mambu’s core banking system, supplied on a hosted basis.

OakNorth
A start-up focused on lending to SMEs. It has also regulatory approval to accept deposits and make savings products available to individuals and small businesses.

The bank uses Mambu’s core banking system at the back-end, as well as the Sage and Almis systems. For the middle office, it has Ncino. It also uses Facebook Workplace for internal operations. At the front-end, there is an in-house developed solution.

OakNorth is the first bank in the UK to have its core banking system in the cloud (Amazon Web Services, AWS).

For payments and agency banking, OakNorth signed for ClearBank’s platform in early 2019, starting with utilising the latter’s real-time Faster Payments infrastructure, allowing for instant payments.

OneSavings Bank
A result of bringing together a number of financial services businesses owned by US-based private equity firm JC Flowers. OneSavings Bank has a balance sheet of £3 billion. Other OneSavings constituents comprise Kent Reliance (residential mortgages and savings products), Interbay Commercial (commercial mortgages), Prestige Finance (secured loans), Reliance Property Loans (property financing) and Heritable Partners (development finance).

United, OneSavings Bank provides savings, loans and investments.

For its tech, the bank uses Phoebus’ lending platform to service mortgages (back office operations) and a DPR Consulting solution at the front-end. Phoebus replaced a bespoke development based on a legacy processing system, Bastion (originally built by IBM).

The Kent Reliance business uses Sandstone Technology’s digital banking and customer onboarding software.

Oxbury

Challenger bank for British farmers Oxbury FS is set to launch in the UK “later in 2020”.

As well as offering savings accounts to the general public and all businesses, the Chester-based challenger says it wants to particularly focus on the British agricultural sector – something it says has never been done before.

The challenger submitted its banking licence last year to the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and are awaiting the regulatory stamp of approval.

Oxbury wants to help farms with their cash flow, acknowledging that unlike many other small businesses the fluctuation of cashflow is far more heavily dependent on the seasons for farms.

Offering both lending and savings products to farmers, the digital bank will rest on a “cloud-based API-first architecture” and will be driven by a board of directors with “decades” of banking and agricultural knowledge – including ex-head of business banking at HSBC Huw Morgan and former Bank of England adviser Tim Fitzpatrick.

Paragon Bank
A banking subsidiary of a well-established specialist finance provider, Paragon Group. The bank was launched in early 2014. It offers savings and loans (including development and asset finance) to individuals and SMEs.

FinTech Futures understands that the bank’s deposits operations are outsourced to Newcastle Strategic Solutions, the IT and outsourcing arm of Newcastle Building Society.

PCF Bank
PCF Bank is a new name for Private and Commercial Finance Group (PCFG). The bank got its licence in early December 2016 and fully launched for business in mid-2017, once it had its banking licence restriction lifted.

PCFG has been around since the early 1990s offering loans to individuals and companies for vehicles, plant and equipment. It has 14,000 customers and a finance portfolio of over £100 million. The company is London-based and employs 45 people.

For its tech, PCF Bank uses Temenos’ T24 core banking system and Sandstone Technology’s digital banking/customer onboarding tools.

Pepper Money
London-based lender Pepper Money plans to obtain a banking licence. The firm was founded in 2015 and offers residential and buy-to-let mortgages exclusively through intermediaries.

Pepper Money says its mortgages are for “clients whose needs are less straightforward”, such as “those with credit blips, the recently self-employed, a complex income, young credit history, or previous financial difficulties”.

In preparation for the banking licence, in 2018/2019 the company started building its treasury function from scratch, including anti-money laundering (ALM) processes, internal liquidity adequacy assessment processes (ILAAP), and internal capital adequacy assessment processes (ICAAP).

Pockit
Not a bank but a prepaid MasterCard. Pockit has been around since 2013, focusing on the “financially excluded” Britons, who rely on cash in the absence of bank accounts. By October 2016, it had 100,000 customers, with £100 million transacted on Pockit.

Pockit’s products have account numbers and sort codes, thus having “all the attributes of an online current account”, Pockit says. It takes two minutes to open an account. “There are no credit checks, just a simple, online form, and a one-off payment of 99p”. There are also 99p charges for a contactless Pocket card, paying in with cash and withdrawing money from the UK ATMs.

Pocket added direct debits and remittances abroad at the end of 2016. In 2017, it plans to start offering overdrafts and insurance products.

Pockit uses GPS for processing and Wirecard for issuing.

Prepaid Financial Services (PFS)
As the name suggests, PFS offers a prepaid account that it markets as “a complete current account offering to our customers in the UK and anywhere within the Eurozone” – an alternative to traditional bank accounts.

The accounts come with a mobile app, prepaid Mastercard debit card and an IBAN number.

The company is authorised as an e-money institution and is also a European Payments Council Scheme participant.

It is also a paytech provider, including issuing solutions, e-wallets, prepaid cards, account switching service, merchant accounts and mobile tech/apps.

PFS was set up in 2008. It’s based in the UK, with offices in Ireland and Malta.

RCI Bank
A subsidiary of France’s RCI Bank and Services (RCI Banque; formerly known as Renault Crédit International), RCI Bank was launched in the UK in 2015. In March 2019, it obtained a full banking licence.

RCI Bank is based in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. It focuses on the savings market and offers two products: a fixed-term savings account and an easy access savings account. It provides its services via digital channels and also has a call/support centre

The bank employs 300+ people and has over 75,000 savings customers.

Its CEO, Jean-Louis Labauge, explains the UK banking licence is an opportunity “to strengthen our roots in the UK” and assures the bank is “committed to being here for the long term”.

Rebank
Founded in January 2018 and becoming a Y Combinator graduate the same year, Rebank offers a platform which can consolidate real-time money transfers across multiple connected bank accounts held by businesses into one place and be used to initiate payments.

The start-up charges a subscription fee for its business customers to use the service starting at $50 per month.

In December 2019, the challenger secured a $2.8 million seed funding round led by long-term tech investor ADV.

Recognise
A new bank for SMEs, founded by Jason Oakley, the former MD of Metro Bank’s commercial and mortgages lending business. According to Oakley, the name “Recognise” is designed to “reflect the lack of recognition and dedication to SMEs from the big banks” and “no relationship, no contact, no recognition of the vital role they play in our economy”.

The bank runs a variety of services from cloud banking firm nCino, including biometrics, video conferencing, due diligence checks, and open banking initiatives, as well as the vendor’s Bank Operating System.

It also signed for Mambu’s core banking system, supplied on a hosted (cloud) basis.

The bank applied for a banking licence, and expects to open for business in 2020.

Redwood Bank
An SME bank challenger that received a banking licence in spring 2017 and opened for business later that year.

The entity behind it is Acorn Financial Partners (AFP), owned by Acorn Global Investments (AGI). AGI is controlled by David and Jonathan Rowland, who have experience in the banking and finance sectors. Its other major investor is a local authority, Warrington Borough Council.

The bank is headquartered in the Hertfordshire county.

It offers secured SME lending products to owner occupied businesses, as well as to commercial and residential property investors. It also provides business deposit accounts.

Redwood runs on a cloud-based core banking system from DPR Consulting, hosted in a Microsoft Azure cloud environment. This is the first instance of such implementation in the UK and the first cloud site for DPR’s tech.

Revverbank
Revverbank is a Manchester-based new bank for regional businesses and savers in the UK.

In July 2019, it selected Finastra’s Fusion Essence in the cloud to power its end-to-end core banking capabilities, underpinned by Microsoft’s Azure platform.

Revolut
Revolut is a payments and fintech start-up launched in mid-2015. It is based in Level39, a financial tech incubator in London.

The offering is a mobile money app that includes a prepaid Mastercard debit card, currency exchange and P2P payments.

A free current account (with an IBAN) is also available in the UK. It can be opened in three minutes, without a proof of address or credit check, according to the company.

Revolut says it supports spending and ATM withdrawals in 90 currencies and sending in 23 currencies directly from the mobile app.

The majority of its services are free of charge, although it also offer premium accounts and services, which come with a fee.

It’s “the only account for your global lifestyle”, the company says. Revolut is “beyond banking”.

In 2017, Revolut applied for a European banking licence. In December 2018, it received a “specialised” European banking licence, facilitated by Lithuania’s central bank. It also then unveiled plans to receive licences across multiple countries worldwide.

In April 2018, it raised an additional $250 million in Series C funding, which saw the fintech valued at $1.7 billion – a five-fold increase in less than a year. Later that year, it unveiled plans to raise $500 million in a Series D round.

Earlier in 2018, it fully launched its open API – allowing users to integrate Revolut for Business accounts with third party software and in-house systems.

On the regtech side, it works with ClauseMatch and BearingPoint.

Over the last year, Revolut was rocked by compliance and culture criticisms, and saw a senior management shake-up, including the departure of the CFO and the appointment of a new CRO.

Shawbrook Bank
Shawbrook Bank was formed in 2011 via the merger of Whiteaway Laidlaw Bank, Link Loans and Commercial First and owned by RBS Equity Finance. It is a specialist lending and savings bank that focuses primarily on SMEs.

It employs 550 people and has a head office in Brentwood, Essex.

It has an asset finance arm, Shawbrook Asset Finance (formerly Singers Asset Finance, acquired by Shawbrook in 2012) and an asset-based lending business, Shawbrook Business Credit (formerly Centric Commercial Finance, acquired by Shawbrook in 2014).

Shawbrook went for an IPO in 2015.

Among the bank’s tech software and services providers are Sandstone Technology for digital banking front-end, Target Group for business process outsourcing (BPO) and Brightstar with its EasySource sourcing and case management system.

For its core platform, Shawbrook uses Sopra Banking Software’s Mortgage and Savings Suite (MSS). At the front-end, Sandstone Technology provides its digital banking and customer onboarding software to the bank.

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)
SVB came to the UK from the US in 2012 (and was the bank’s first international branch).

SVB, which describes itself as a “high-tech” bank, says its UK business “sits right at the heart of London’s exciting technology community and works with some of the most innovative businesses in the UK and Europe”.

SVB UK has done around $3 billion (£2.3 billion) of financing since its launch, focusing on lending to technology companies (including start-ups) and providing services to venture capital and private equity firms that invest in technology and biotechnology.

It operates as a branch of its US parent, under a full banking licence from the UK regulators. SVB has a full commercial bank offering, including business current accounts, loans, corporate credit cards, foreign exchange, UK/EU payments and so on.

The bank runs Oracle FSS’s Flexcube for its core processing and ACI Worldwide’s software for online banking.

Soldo
A prepaid debit card (Mastercard) and a mobile app, available in the UK and Italy. It is a multi-user spending account, designed to enable and control the flow of money inside a group of multiple users, e.g. a family or a company.

Soldo is based in London. It was founded by tech veteran Carlo Gualandri, one of the founders of Italy’s first ever web portal, Virgilio.it. The company says it does not intend to compete with banks, but will rather complement their services. It plans to seek formal partnerships with banks and co-branded arrangements.

It runs its own in-house developed technology, which is cloud-based. GPS is Soldo’s processor and Wirecard is the issuer.

Soldo holds an electronic money licence and is regulated by the FCA.

Starling Bank
A mobile-only bank targeting “millions of users who live their lives on their phones”. Starling offers a personal current account, a business account and a Marketplace, which provides its customers with in-app access to a range of third-party financial services providers, such as insurers, pension providers, investment platforms and mortgage brokers.

Starling Payment Services provides payment solutions to other banks, fintechs and payment services providers.

Starling received £48 million ($70 million) of investment in 2016 from Harald McPike, an American quantitative trader, and gained its banking licence in summer 2016. The following year, It announced its first international location, Ireland.

In 2019, it unveiled its new product – a dual currency card with allows personal and business customers to spend in pounds and euros through one debit card.

On the technology side, the bank has developed its core banking platform and mobile apps from scratch in-house. It says its systems are entirely cloud-based running in Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

It provides direct access to BACS, Faster Payments Scheme (FPS), STEP2 and Target2 payments schemes and Mastercard debit cards using GPS for card processing and Bottomline Technologies for payments operations.

In February 2019, Starling became one of the three recipients of the funds of Pool A Capability and Innovation Fund, set up by the RBS Banking Competition Remedies. It received £100 million.

In June 2019, the bank partnered with PelicanPay and newly launched paytech, Tribe, to provide more businesses with the latest payment services.

By autumn 2019, the bank had raised £263 million in funding/investment, with the latest round of £30 million announced in October. It also said it was nearing a one million customer milestone (of these, around 80,000 are businesses) and £1 billion in deposits.

State Bank of India UK
State Bank of India, the largest bank in India, has had a presence in the UK through a dedicated branch in London – State Bank of India UK (SBIUK) – for many years.

SBIUK works with consumers and corporates, and provides savings/deposit accounts, lending and remittances.

In 2017, SBI formed a new entity in the UK – a subsidiary (rather than a branch) – and received a banking licence for it.

For its core banking software, SBI is a major user of Infosys’ Finacle across its international network, including in the UK.

Sumo
A mobile banking app from Thomas Cook Money and Ferratum Group, designed specifically for holidays.

Sumo launched in Sweden at the end of 2017, and will launch in the UK in 2018.

It is a fee-free multi-currency account that comes with an “intelligent” contactless debit card that can automatically identify the local currency at point of sale.

The app currently supports seven currencies (including SEK, GBP and EUR) and allows customers to make four fee-free ATM withdrawals at home and abroad per month.

In addition, Sumo offers a range of savings accounts, an overdraft facility, and customers can send money to friends and family via SMS to cover shared holiday expenses.

Ferratum uses Mambu’s core banking solution to support its SME lending services in Finland and Sweden, while its subsidiary bank in Malta runs Finastra’s Fusionbanking core system.

Tally
Tally, the banking app offering a currency equivalent to milligrams of gold, launched the second version of its app and current account in January 2020. The new accounts are connected to the UK Faster Payments (FP) network.

Initially known as Lionsgold, Tally is a stable coin which is linked to the physical commodity, gold. This means it is not a cryptocurrency, because it’s linked to a tangible rather than a digital asset.

Tally now defines itself as a “reserve banking platform and physical asset currency that operates with the fiat currency fractional-reserve banking system”. The system keeps customers’ savings on its own platform, and says it gives consumers “full ownership and control of their money” because the physical gold attributing value to it is held outside the banking system.

“Tally is money designed to hold its value over time rather than being devalued by inflation, and to be protected from bank lending and systemic risk,” says co-founder and CEO Cameron Parry.

One Tally equals one milligram of gold which is stored in a “secure vault” in Switzerland according to the challenger bank. British sterling and euros can be converted into the Tally currency at the global spot price and customers can spend it through a Mastercard-powered debit card.

It costs users a monthly fee of 0.1% of the average monthly holding to use Tally. The fintech says the charge covers storage, security, insurance and operational costs.

The fintech initially launched its beta app in June 2019, and now hopes to add additional features such as savings ‘safes’, statements and the opportunity to ‘gift gold’.

Tandem
Tandem was founded in the UK in 2013 by Ricky Knox (CEO) and Michael Kent (who now holds a non-exec role; he is also a founder of money transfer company Azimo). In November 2016, it started inviting its community of 10,000 “co-founders” to be its first customers.

The bank’s focus is on helping people manage their money rather than on direct product sales, according to its founders. It offers savings, cards and loans products.

In addition to the digital delivery channels, Tandem has a “brick and mortar” call centre to deal with customer queries and more complex transactions.

The bank’s journey hasn’t been smooth. In early 2017, UK retail chain House of Fraser pulled its planned £35 million investment, resulting in the existing investors pumping £3.6 million emergency cash into Tandem (in return for a hefty discount for Tandem’s shares). Tandem also had to give up its deposit-taking banking licence, which it acquired in 2015.

In 2017/18, it acquired a small UK-based bank – Harrods Bank – which brought £80 million of capital from Harrods’ current owners and a new banking licence. It also bought Pariti, a UK-based money management app with around 95,000 users.

For its technology, Tandem uses Fiserv and its Agiliti platform, a shared Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering, hosted by Blue Chip. It has around 18 Fiserv and partner applications, including Fiserv’s Signature core banking system. However, this is understood to be under review.

In 2019, Tandem announced the migration of its initial IT infrastructure to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.

It also works with AI tech start-up Personetics for personalised insights and advice, and with Form3, a UK-based cloud technology provider of Payments-as-a-Service processing for banks and financial institutions.

In 2019, it announced the migration of its initial IT infrastructure to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.

Also in 2019, it unveiled its plans to expand to Hong Kong. This would be the first overseas location for Tandem. The announcement follows from the earlier $15 million investment by Convoy Global, a Hong Kong-based financial adviser.

Thinkmoney
Thinkmoney is a digital banking services provider based in Manchester. Its main product – the thinkmoney Current Account (which comes with a Mastercard prepaid debit card) – is designed to help customers budget well and stay on top of their finances.

The account automatically splits customer’s money into two separate pots – one for bills and one for spending money. It uses information about customers’ incomes and Direct Debits to ringfence the money they need for bills and other important payments. The money left over is then available to spend on the customer’s debit card.

Thinkmoney released new customer-facing digital services in 2019 in collaboration with low-code provider Outsystems. This allowed the company to launch a new mobile app with 13 more features than its predecessor after just 14 weeks of development.

For its back-office processing, Thinkmoney uses Fiserv’s Signature core system.

Tide
Another banking service, rather than a bank. It is aimed at SMEs and is currently in the private alpha testing stage. It aims to open for business this autumn.

Tide will offer a “nimble small business current account”, with a swift set-up and no monthly frees. It claims to be among the “world’s first” mobile-first banking services for SMEs.

Tide’s proposition is a fully featured current account and business MasterCard, plus SME-oriented finance apps, accounting capabilities and interaction with Tide’s community online.

In early 2019, Tide announced a deal with ClearBank (see entry above) for its clearing and payments infrastructure.

In H2 2019, Tide received a £44 million investment from Japan-based SBI, bringing its value to £200 million. By then, Tide had 150+ employees and 100,000+ members.

It also released its first paid plan – Tide Plus – offering SMEs working hour phone support, a 24 hour legal helpline and 20 free transfers a month for £11.99 a month.

The Services Family
This digital bank will cater for the UK military personnel, veterans and their families. It plans to open for business by Q4 2016 and introduce products and services in a phased manner. To begin with, it will commence trading as a mortgage provider. By 2017, it hopes to become a fully licensed retail bank.

On the tech side, it will be underpinned by Sopra Banking Software’s core banking system, Sopra Banking Platform, and digital channels software. The solution will be delivered on a managed services basis.

Together Money
A new name, but the operations behind it have a 40-year old history. Together Money is a new brand of Jerrold Holdings Group, which unites Auction Finance, Blemain Finance, Cheshire Mortgage Corporation and Lancashire Mortgage Corporation.

Together Money’s focus is on residential and commercial mortgage loans to niche market segments underserved by mainstream lenders.

It is understood that it has applied for a banking licence.

Triodos Bank
An ethical bank with HQ in Bristol, UK. It is part of a Dutch ethical banking group, Triodos, and had operated in the country under the EU “passporting” regime since 1995. In April 2019, it converted into a wholly-owned subsidiary company, with its own UK banking licence, in readiness for the UK’s potential departure from the EU.

It also relaunched its current account and as a result (as well as due to increasing awareness of climate change), it has seen a 26% increase in its UK customer base in the last three years.

For its technology, the bank uses the bespoke platform developed for Triodos’ operations in the Netherlands. For regulatory reporting, it has Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX.

Triodos Bank in the Netherlands uses a methodology, Platform for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF), from a group of Dutch financial institutions to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions of loans and investment portfolios. PCAF covers a number of relevant asset classes, including listed equity, project finance, mortgages, commercial real estate, project finance and corporate debt.

The group also has banking activities in Germany, Spain, Belgium and France.

TruFin
TruFin, a creation of independent AIM firm Arrowgrass, started trading on the AIM of the London Stock Exchange in February 2018.

TruFin is a holding company comprising three fintech and banking businesses – Distribution Finance Capital (DFC – supply chain finance), Satago (invoice finance) and Oxygen Finance (dynamic discounting). It has 100 employees, and offices predominantly in the UK and a small team in the US.

In addition, TruFin owns a 15% minority stake in Zopa, a UK consumer P2P lender, which operates independently (see the Zopa entry below).

U Account
U Account started off as a prepaid card business, operating under the name Ffrees Family Finance Ltd and targeting those who are under-served by  traditional high-street banks.

In November 2016, it evolved into U Account, a current account that aims to help its users to improve their financial wellbeing, offering direct debit payments, budgeting tools and more.

U Account was launched in partnership with Wirecard, Global Processing Services (GPS) and Bottomline Technologies.

Union Bank of India (UK) Limited
A subsidiary of one of India’s largest banks, now with a UK banking licence.

For its tech, Union Bank of India (UK) uses Infosys’ Finacle. Its parent is already an established user of the Finacle core banking system across its international locations.

United Trust Bank
United Trust Bank is a specialist bank offering a range of secured funding facilities for individuals and businesses and deposit accounts for individuals, businesses and charities.

It describes itself as “an entrepreneurial and pragmatic specialist lender”, providing asset finance, professional loans, bridging finance, development finance, specialised mortgages and structured finance.

The bank’s history dates back to 1955. It was bought out in 2003 when it had just ten staff and a balance sheet of around £20 million. Today, it has a balance sheet in excess of £1 billion and nearly 200 staff.

For its technology, the bank uses the Aurius core banking system supplied by local vendor Sword Apak.

Unity Trust Bank
Birmingham-based Unity Trust Bank provides specialist banking services to trade unions, charities and other organisations that operate in the not-for-profit sector in the UK. It also services profit-with-purpose businesses.

The bank was founded in 1984, with a vision “to enrich society as a whole”. Historically, it was majority owned by individual trade unions and federations (73%), and Co-operative Bank (27%). It became a fully independent bank in December 2015, when it bought back the share from the Co-operative Bank and raised £8 million in new share capital.

In 2012, it committed to a new “double-bottom line” strategy, assessing sustainable financial returns alongside social impact.

The bank states it remains true to its founding principles and its ambition is to become the bank of choice for socially minded organisations in the UK.

For its technology, Unity Trust Bank is a long-standing user of Sword Apak’s Aurius core banking system.

Ursa Finance
A challenger based in Manchester, set up in 2017. The bank does not have a banking licence yet and is not operational.

Once launched, it will focus on business banking.

The bank looks to “humanise” its operations rather than focus on complete automation. It explains: “We have seen more and more banks treat business customers like numbers instead of people. We have seen more and more automated messages, automated decisions, automated rejections.

“At Ursa, we feel that when you pick up the phone, you should be answered by a person who knows your name and understands your business. We feel that decisions should be made by people, with both numbers and relationships in mind.”

Viola Black
A start-up based in Wales. Viola Black is not a bank, it’s a money management app and a prepaid Mastercard card.

It is expected to launch in early 2019. It will offer the usual money management app features – such as tracking day-to-day budgeting, send funds overseas and digitally store receipts.

There is a monthly fee of £4 for using the account.

Viola Black is part of the Viola Group, a privately held company that was first established in Vienna in 2012. Now it has offices in the UK, US, Dubai, and India, with planned expansion into Brazil, Canada, South Africa and Australia.

Also in the group is ViolaCard. This has a separate website and offers a prepaid debit card for money transfers, currencies, and money management. The card is issued by AF Payments.

Virgin Money UK (formerly CYBG)
Virgin Money UK is a holding company that owns the Virgin Money banking operations in the UK, plus Clydesdale Bank, Yorkshire Bank and the app-based banking service B (together comprising CYBG). Following CYBG’s acquisition of Virgin Money (a £1.7 billion deal) in summer 2018, the entire group embarked on an enterprise-wide rebrand under the Virgin Money name.

The combined bank offers banking products and services to consumers and businesses. It has six million customers and a balance sheet of almost £70 billion. It is the UK’s sixth-largest bank by assets.

All operations are being moved onto CYBG’s existing core platform, FIS’s Profile. The migration is phased over three years.

A bit of CYBG’s history: it was formed by National Australia Bank (NAB) in February 2016. The two banks’ individual histories date back over 175 years. B was launched in mid-2016, becoming the first major product launch by CYBG since its demerger from NAB.

CYBG was floated on the London Stock Exchange and Australian Securities Exchange in early 2016 and was valued at £1.6 billion (approximately 40% of book value). NAB paid £420 million for Clydesdale Bank in 1987 and £900 million for Yorkshire Bank in 1990.

Vive

Vive says it’s helping those with poor credit scores “revive” their finances. It secured a restricted banking licence from the Bank of England in January 2020.

The challenger’s CEO Nick Anthony told Altfi at the beginning of 2020 that it has “more than enough capital” to launch later in the year.

Aiming to fully launch the bank in the second quarter of 2020, Vive will offer personal loans, a fixed rate savings account and an open banking-based money manager app. Note the lack of a current account offering.

“We want to address a different segment of the market,” CEO Anthony tells Altfi. “It’s just not difficult to get a current account, so we want to focus on serving our customers with what they really need”.

Anthony is an ex-Royal Marine officer who went on to spend a year in the Ministry of Defense before joining Barclays as one of its chief operating officers. Before heading up Vive, he also spent years specialising in investment banking and risk advice.

Purposefully “kept very quiet”, the bank was founded back in 2017. Two investors have funded the challenger so far: Turkish businessman Kasim Garipoglu and British financier Robert William Hanson.

VTB
Russia’s second largest banking group, VTB, is looking to launch a retail banking business in the UK and has applied for a UK banking licence, to enable it to take retail deposits.

VTB is not new to the UK – the bank has been operating in the country via its multinational investment banking arm, VTB Capital. However, it hasn’t been involved in retail banking.

For its technology, it opted for Sopra Banking Software’s Sopra Banking Platform, supplied on a hosted basis.

WeSwap
A peer-to-peer (P2P) currency exchange platform founded in 2010.

WeSwap enables customers to swap currency directly with other travellers. While banks and bureaux buy their currency from a wholesaler/broker/etc and then pass on the costs to customers, WeSwap says it “matches up people travelling in opposite directions, which cuts out the middleman”.

It offers a flat rate of 2% on 18 currencies.

It comes with a mobile app and a card that has “some clever tricks up its sleeve” on the spend side. It will detect the correct currency based on where users are spending, and attempt to draw on the funds from that particular wallet; if no funds are found, it’ll then draw on the user’s balance from their home currency, and complete the swap as part of the transaction.

Users can swap currency in-app. The firm’s swapping tech analyses all incoming swaps and ensures they are fulfilled at the best time for the customer, based on their swap type (instant, three-day or seven-day). It also groups and aggregates swaps to maximise the possibility of a P2P swap, remove the impact of market fluctuations where possible and increase operational efficiency, WeSwap says.

The company is now building a data-driven budget planner – using data from its users, the planner calculates how much money individuals would need to take for their holiday and provide a bespoke budget for that destination and user.

Wyelands Bank
Wyelands Bank is small entity previously known as Tungsten Bank and before that as FIBI Bank.

FIBI Bank was purchased by Tungsten Corporation from First International Bank of Israel in mid-2014 for £30 million. In late 2016, it was sold to Wyelands Holdings (part of Gupta Family Alliance/Liberty House Group) also for £30 million.

It relaunched in 2017 with a new identity and focus as a specialist provider of financial solutions to commodities, steel and engineering enterprises. Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman of Liberty House Group, says the acquisition is part of the group’s strategy to support the UK manufacturing.

Wyelands Bank also implemented a new core banking system – ERI’s Olympic – to replace its legacy Misys’ Equation core.

Yolt
Yolt is ING Bank’s UK-based smart money app offshoot, set up by the Dutch bank in June 2017, and had 900,000 registered users by H2 2019.

It is works with simplesurance, MoneySuperMarket, Anorak, Wealthify, Pensionbee and Raisin. The latter partnership was signed in autumn 2019 and links Yolt’s app with Raisin’s pan-European savings marketplace – providing its users access to saving deposit rates from Raisin’s partner banks, directly through the Yolt app.

Additionally, Yolt also announced support for Payvision, a Netherlands-based global acquirer and payment processing platform (in 2018, ING bought a 75% stake in Payvision), and Funding Options, a UK-based small business funding comparison platform (there is also an ING connection as Funding  Options launched in the Netherlands in 2019, following investment by ING Ventures).

Zopa
The world’s first peer-to-peer (P2P) lender, Zopa, made an application to the PRA and FCA for a banking licence in H2 2016. It was granted the licence in late 2018.

Zopa’s bank offers deposit accounts and overdraft alternatives to borrowers, in addition to the lender’s existing suite of investor and borrower products. It describes itself as the “world’s first hybrid peer-to-peer and digital bank”.

It is understood Zopa’s core banking solution is an in-house development, which took around 50 developers and 18-20 months to complete.

According to Zopa’s CEO speaking at the 2019 Sibos conference, the homegrown solution enabled the bank to do multiple releases a day if required and provided flexibility to launch new products and features “in days rather than months”. The solution is based on microservices architecture, cloud-based (AWS) tech stack, and is mainly on Java and “a bit of .NET”.

The firm received £140 million in funding on the eve of its licence expiring in December 2019, enabling it to continue operations as a bank by meeting the minimum capital requirements.