Jonathan Thompson, CEO, and David Broadbent, CFO, of Bank North gave a 30-minute presentation followed by a Q&A outlining how Bank North will disrupt the £150bn UK SME lending market with its fintech-enabled but locally-pod-empowered bank model. The key features included the focus on experienced and incentivised people, empowered with state-of-the-art, scalable and efficient technology and embedded in local communities with local relationships. The model is targeted a specific sub-segment of the SME market (typically base rate +3.5% to 6% lending) and driven by a super service proposition.
Jonathan and David outlined progress with the first pod and the current expectation of financials, the outlook and the benefits from deposit fundings. In a wide-ranging Q&A session topics inter alia included competition, funding, credit risk, returns to investors and the pod model.
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Bank North is being developed to serve the huge UK SME lending market. It has progressive technology, a regional pod model and experienced managers to deliver a best-in-class service to SMEs and commercial brokers, to whom it will offer an unparalleled service and a unique remuneration model. It will be funded through best-buy retail deposit-comparison websites. The model should have a material cost advantage over competitors, and the credit risk is being tightly managed.
