Ogden takes the wraps off ClearBank

Worldpay founder Nick Ogden has taken the wraps off ClearBank, the first new UK agency and clearing bank to be created in over 250 years.

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Ogden takes the wraps off ClearBank

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At a press conference in London attended by UK Government ministers, Ogden said that ClearBank is regulated and authorised and is on track to open its doors in Autumn 2017 to financial services providers, FCA-regulated businesses and fintech startups that require access to UK payment systems and core banking technology to support current account capabilities. The banking-as-a-service startup will not be open to the public.

Built on a combination of public and private cloud infrastructure using Microsoft Azure, ClearBank will launch with a purpose-built, integrated core banking technology system, and API developed in accordance with ISO 20022 to support easier connections.

The institution has secured an investment of £25 million from PPF Group and CFFI Ventures in addition to investments from the founding management team, which include executive chairman Ogden, CEO Charles McManus, CFO Mark Jenkins, chief risk officer Steve Barry, CTO Andrew Smith and chief governance officer Philip House.

Ogden is touting the benefits of ClearBank's technology platform as a key differentiator for the bank. "ClearBank was built specifically to create competition and aims to change the market dynamics radically," he says. "Figures from the Cruickshank Report indicate that, with the improved efficiency delivered by ClearBank’s built-for-purpose technology, between £2bn and £3bn could be saved from the annual costs that are paid for transactional banking in the UK."

He says ClearBank will spend the next six months stress-testing its proposition with an e-money institution, a challenger bank and a building society onboard.

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Comments: (3)

Andy Agnew

Andy Agnew Smart Solutions Architect at Smart Traffic City

ClearBank is going to really shake things up by providing modern services in a part of the banking system that has been too slow to change.  It will be an enabler for other fintech innovation as well. 

Gerard Hergenroeder

Gerard Hergenroeder Retired IBMer and Banking Executive at Payments Shark

This Fintech may just make it. Unlike so many others they understand the real value is in banking.

A Finextra member 

Its hard to launch a bank, you either pay high rates (Metro) or you end up with people using you as an FSCS retail buffer bank (Starling, Atom) , or businesses that want something different at one phase in their growth. Then they expand, get some leverage and bank with a big boy. Technology sadly is not a differentiator for business banking, it is for retail (Contactless, Applepay, Digital, Apps, Servicing etc). I sincerely hope they make it, however it will have to be funky. If they offered white labelled current accounts with a debit/prepay card that could be offered by third parties they would clear up. Almost banking thats SAAS for B2B2C. I am by the way an ex banker, people are just so cautious with their money.

We are all individuals, well not when we are banking our money we are not.

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