P2P lender Zopa is restructuring its business into three distinct entities as it prepares for the launch of its challenger bank proposition in the UK.
The re-organisation will establish separate boards for the Zopa P2P business, proposed bank - subject to banking licence approval - and Group to reflect the increasing scale of the business and ensure good corporate governance.
The changes come with the appointment of two new board chairs as well as two new independent non-executive directors to the proposed bank. Christine Farnish, who has spent the past six years as chair of the P2P Finance Association, will be chair of the P2P board and Peter Herbert, a former CEO at rival challenger Tandem, will chair the proposed bank.
The two ne non-executive directors are former Standard Chartered chief risk officer Richard Goulding, and Paul Cutter, CTO at Paddy Power Betfair since 2014, as an independent non-executive director, specialising in technology.
Zopa has secured £32 million in funding to help support the build-out of the new bank’s technology infrastructure and opened a developer centre in Barcelona to work on coding for payment gateways, credit card processing, and deposit systems. In January the firm appointed a CFO, chief risk officer and chief customer officer with varied experience of the challenger bank scene, incumbent banking and non-bank branding.
Zopa is rumoured to be in talks over a fresh £50 million raise, which would value the company at up to £400 million. An IPO within two years is also on the cards.