The appointment further strengthens CivilisedBank’s Board of Directors ahead of the anticipated receipt of authorisation later this year, followed by launch in 2017.

Patrice is a highly experienced risk and regulatory expert with over 20 years’ track record in investment, business and retail banking, as well as across wealth and asset management. A former Managing Director, Global Chief Risk Officer & Head of Governance at Barclays Wealth, Patrice has been lead adviser and partner in the Financial Services Risk and Regulatory practice at EY and has advised the boards of many of the largest UK and International financial services groups. She is also an adviser and contributor to Board Agenda, which provides briefings for boards on Governance, Strategy, Risk, and Ethics.

Chris Jolly, Chairman, CivilisedBank said: “Patrice has an outstanding record in helping organisations grow in a dynamic, yet regulated environment. Her expertise in risk management, product development and corporate governance will be invaluable as we move towards launch next year. We now have a Board to lead this cultural innovation of banking. CivilisedBank is traditional banking reinvented, bringing back one-to-one relationship banking, enabled by the latest technology.”

CivilisedBank will not have branches but will operate through a network of Local Bankers working in their local communities and backed by an innovative, yet tried-and-tested technology platform. The platform, both online and mobile, is being deployed for the first time in the UK. Its unique, branchless local banker network will help build one-to-one relationships, without the traditional costs associated with high street banks.

Patrice McDonald, Risk Committee Chair, CivilisedBank said: “Customers remain poorly served by the incumbent banks and there is a pressing need to return to the concept of true relationship banking and restore trust and confidence in financial services. I’m enormously excited to be part of the CivilisedBank team and to be establishing a genuine ‘challenger’ bank with UK-wide coverage, business current accounts, no legacy infrastructure and a customer centric focus for UK SME’s.

“Over the coming weeks and months, I will be assisting the bank to focus on meeting its regulatory capital requirements and on developing technology and operations platform ahead of launch next year.”

CivilisedBank will initially target UK SME’s by offering businesses current accounts with deposits, transaction banking, overdrafts, foreign currency exchange, investments, savings and loans. It will also address the UK retail market with specific savings and investment products. Its UK-focus means that it has limited exposure to policy decisions and uncertainty surrounding Brexit.

Led by a team1 with a proven track record in the UK financial services industry including Santander, Handelsbanken, HSBC, Societe Generale, Lloyds and Bank of Scotland, CivilisedBank includes the only person to have built and launched two new UK banks and a credit union.