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Launching a Unicorn Business and Disrupting Traditional Markets with Purpose | CPO and Group Chief Risk and Compliance Officer Frankie Woodhead and Stephen Bell @ The Bank of London

  • Podcast

  • C-Suite & Leadership

Ready for a Revolution?

In this episode, Livvie Holt sits down with Stephen Bell, Group Chief Risk and Compliance Officer, and Frankie Woodhead, Group Chief Product Officer, from the Bank of London.
 
A unicorn status attained at time of launch, and second clearing bank to launch in the UK in 250 years; The business has taken the fintech sector by storm, landing into the top 10 of the nation’s most valuable FinTechs in 2021 – trailblazing since.
 
The Bank of London is different. They don’t lend, invest, or leverage your deposits like other banks do, so  they're not impacted by traditional ‘bank-runs’. They simply hold all deposits in full and unencumbered at the Bank of England, always keeping them fully available upon demand - 'safer banking for business Britain, the way it should be.'

We delve into the bank's unique vision and strategy that disrupts traditional banking by focusing solely on payment settlement, clearing, and agency banking without lending or investing.
 
Stephen and Frankie share insights into the challenges and triumphs of launching and growing a startup in the highly regulated banking sector. They highlight the importance of inclusivity being a the heart of the business, resilience, and a customer-centric approach in driving their success.
 
Tune in to hear about their journeys, the innovative solutions they bring to the table, and their advice for other disruptors in the industry.
 
Whether you're a startup enthusiast or a banking professional, this episode offers valuable lessons on navigating and succeeding in disrupting a traditional market, with purpose.

***

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Transcription 

  Hello and welcome to a new episode of The Start-Up Diaries podcast brought to you by Burns Sheehan, a leading insights driven technology recruitment business located in Manchester and London. In this episode, we speak to Stephen Bell, Group Chief Risk and Compliance Officer and Frankie Woodhead, Group Chief Product Officer from the Bank of London.

Back in 2021, the Bank of London attained unicorn status at launch and was the second clearing bank to launch in the UK in the last 250 years. With immediate effect, the Bank of London entered the nation's 10 most valuable fintechs at a valuation of 1. 1 billion. and became the first pre revenue bank to attain unicorn status.

Stephen and Frankie share insights into the challenges and the triumphs. Of launching and growing a startup in the highly regulated banking sector. Inclusivity is truly at the heart of everything that the Bank of London is doing. From their day to day, how they empower their staff, how they hire their staff.

The conversation truly unravels the power of building with inclusivity, as opposed to having to change the narrative like many traditional sectors do. They highlight the importance of inclusivity, resilience, and and a customer centric approach in driving their success. Stay with us to talk about the innovative solutions they're bringing to the table, how their hiring strategy hugely helps drive their innovation, and advice for others looking to disrupt an industry with purpose.

We think it's a great episode, hope you enjoy it. both for joining us today, we're super excited to be speaking to two fantastic Uh, guests from the Bank of London, let's kick off with a bit of an introduction to you both, Stephen and Frankie. If I could start with you, Stephen, a bit about your background and, you know, how we got here.

Sure. Thanks for having us. So Stephen Bell, I'm the Group Chief Risk and Compliance Officer for like London and also the country head for Northern Ireland, which is our biggest employment site. Uh, I've been in banking pretty much my whole career in all sorts of different parts of it. Uh, Large banks, small banks, very, very, very broad range of experience.

Unfortunately, he spent too much time post the global financial crisis doing the other end of the banking system. So it was a huge attraction for me to come in at the front end of the startup. So, yeah. I've been here nearly three years and really loving it. Good. And yourself, Frankie, you've obviously joined us before, back when you were 10X, you know, what's changed?

I know we're going to dive into that, but a little bit of an intro to those who haven't listened to that. Yeah. No, thank you for, for having me back. It's great to be back after the 2023 episode. So Frankie Woodhead, Group Chief Product Officer at Bank of London. 16 years experience, 10 years in a tier one bank at Barclays and six and a half years working in earlier stage, kind of stick scale up the firms.

I spent all of my post grad career working at the intersection of product commercial and strategic leadership positions. That of two young girls and yeah, really excited to share a little bit more about what the Bank of London does today. Amazing. Yes. You've been very busy since we last spoke. So congratulations on your family that is now.

So. Let's delve into the fact that the Bank of London is and has been disrupting a, you know, very traditional market. So Stephen, can you talk to us a little bit about the strategies that have, you know, allowed that success? I think before we talk about strategies, we should talk about vision. Yeah. And it was really born out of the vision and the experience, the lived experience of our founder, Anthony Watson, who was Chief executive of a firm that was finding it incredibly difficult to get a bank account.

And over the last, I don't know, 10 years probably, It's become harder and harder for anybody that's not a really plain vanilla, uh, corporate entity to get banking services. And sometimes it's because of different views about the risk profile that people have. Sometimes it's different views about where the directors live.

But, you know, we know of some organizations that will talk about aspiring to reach the end of their decision making in six months. So if you're a startup, if you're an early start company yourself. you can't wait six months to get a bank account. Yeah. And so Anthony had this real passion about why doesn't it work?

Why isn't the system working the way it should? Why isn't it serving people? So his passion, his enthusiasm to kind of solve the problem was a big part of being disruptive. And I would say whilst we are disruptive, we haven't set out overtly to disrupt, which is Just by doing what we're doing, it is being disruptive because we focus only on payment, settlement, clearing, agency, banking.

We don't lend. We don't leverage. We don't invest. We just do what we do and do it to a very high standard. What's very positive about our position is it's all based on cloud native clean technology. And I know from my slightly longer experience than Frankie's 16, just how old the central core of most banks system architecture is.

One particular bank who I know that their core system dates from the mid sixties. Yeah. Now, you know, that's a very long time in the technology world. Yeah. So our, our focus is really to. Focus, focus, focus on solving and helping and including clients who would otherwise find it difficult to get services and to really think more deeply about why particular clients are not getting served by the traditional banks.

Yeah, because some of them may well be a good reason for it. But what we've said is we'd like to turn Policy knows into client specific yeses and not follow the herd, which is what some banks just decide an entire sector Can't be banked. Yeah, and we're saying that's nonsense There must be some people in there that deserve the right to be served by the banking system.

So that's our strategy That's why we're disrupting because we're not trying to lend leverage loan Issued mortgages, provide investments, all that kind of stuff. We just focus on serving a very specific market and it's proven to be really interesting to the clients we are talking to, who see that focus as being a real ad.

Definitely, well we can certainly see that because when you launched you managed to do so without a single client I hear. So I'm very interested in understanding more about how you guys made that happen. Yeah. Well, again, I would say go back to the thesis, which is to be utterly focused on doing this thing really well.

What that meant is we attracted conviction based investors. They weren't traditional high street investors. They weren't pension funds looking for annuity type growth. They were people who saw the opportunity that saw. There are literally billions and billions of dollars, pounds, euros that are swirling around at any one point in time.

2. 4 quadrillion dollars of clearing activities on an annual basis. It's just eye wateringly large numbers. So our investors were saying, this is worth Cracking. This is worth solving for and let's not, um, position ourselves where we have to snatch up the first customer that comes through the door that's built for the future.

Yeah. And so the secret to being able to launch without having Customers was the conviction and backing of our investors, one of them being our founder, um, who really believe in this with such a passion that it's allowed us to be very thoughtful and very clear about building the organization that we need to build with the offerings that we know the clients want from us.

And that has been incredibly positive for us. I will come and talk about regulators at some point later, but you know, one of the big things regulators get concerned about is if you have to grow quickly in order to deal with your investors And having that patience From our investors was a huge positive for us and being able to launch as you say without a client Well, it's, it's astounding, really.

And you've already touched on a couple of the aspects that do make the Bank of London unique in the way that, you know, number one, the vision is actually, it's not trying to do everything, it's trying to do what you're trying to do very well, you know, quality over quantity and that such, which is then flipped on its head and you've had huge success.

What, what other unique aspects, you know, would you like to sort of delve into for our listeners on how you are already driving such success so far? In this crowded market and in this arcade market as well. So I'll maybe, I'll probably, I'll have a lot of thoughts on this, but I think one of the things I would say is we're proudly narrow, that we only do what we do.

And it's interesting when we're talking to potential clients and they say, okay, I'm interested in positing some money with you. We say, fine, it will be with the Bank of England. Yeah, it'll just be with the Bank of England if ever you want it back just let us know it's with the Bank of England And that is quite a different message Yeah, because as we know I mean when Silicon Valley Bank failed last year more money left Silicon Valley Bank in one afternoon than left Northern Rock in a single week at the height of the financial crisis That's how fast things have moved.

Yeah And for us to be able to say to our clients, no, no, it's just with the Bank of England. Yeah. It's amazing how that simple message resonates with people. Yeah. I think the competition's a really interesting point as well, because if I, if you zoom out and you see names like Monzo and Starling and Revolut, and you think, oh, that's financial services, but we actually don't compete at all with any of the names that you'd expect.

What we do is, in my opinion, poorly contended. Okay. As Stephen's referenced, we're seeing a huge divestment from the incumbent banks. So they're all of the big names, but specifically in kind of the financial institution group or in corporate banking, where candidly, this is hard. It is not easy to serve some of these.

types of clients. But to Stephen's point, and it was one of the first phrases that I came across when I first joined around this, we're a client, yes, not a policy. No, we deeply spend time with every prospect, every client understanding their business model. And we want to understand 95 out of a hundred of these business will be great.

Yeah. Five. but aren't so great and clearly not bank number and that's appropriate. But to say all 100 are bad simply because the sector has had a few bad apples is just not appropriate. So we're very much about inclusivity, looking at opportunities for us to bank. Um, as Stephen's referenced, we, uh, we started from the ground up and I've come in at a later stage than, than what I've done previously.

So it's hard to sometimes speak and do it in a way because I've inherited lots of great workers. Uh, being concluded over the years before, uh, but to inherit a cloud native technology stack, inherit four years worth of regulatory conversations and progress on the license To have built a fabulous team All of them things are things that make us unique and we're already starting to see some and improve points As steven referenced we've got over 400 million pounds now in In the customer deposits, we've got over 3, 000 depositors.

We've got over one coming close to 100 direct clients. These are all proof points of just over a year of trading. We're starting to see the momentum and that continues to grow. Many organizations in the market that you do see may be perceived to be in banking. They're actually not banks. And the whole regulatory progress and focus around the world is actually becoming much more pointed.

So when you place your retail funds as a consumer, um, my preference would be very much to place it with the bank because the protection you get, things like FSCS and other items, uh, are much greater than what you get with other types of organizations. I think the unique license, the progress we're making, the fabulous team, and this narrow, narrow focus, as Stephen said, are all things that we're, we're seeing pay dividend.

Definitely. It is resonating. I mean, it's trying to reference the 400 million in deposits at the end of 2023. We were able to say that we were the fastest growing bank by measures of deposits of any bank that had launched in its first year of trading. That's outstanding. And, you know, you're referencing financial services compensation scheme, and that's the 85, 000 limit.

We were delighted that when we launched our deposit product, we were getting quite significant amounts from people depositing far more than that. Okay. So we know from talking to some of the people in the sector that new banks typically struggle to get more than 85, 000 from anybody because of the protection.

Our safety model, our message safer by design, our message that your money's just over there at the Bank of England has actually encouraged people to place significantly larger sums of money with us, which is a great testament to the message that we're trying to convey to people. It's a really powerful combination to have that behind you.

And I'd love to dig into a little bit more of the team, um, aspect that you mentioned there. But first I know that a lot of our listeners are, you know, building startups that aren't necessarily. from this sector. And with your regulatory and compliance background, Stephen, I think it would just be very interesting to share some of the key hurdles that your teams had to face in the early stages to launch, you know, the type of business that you have, because it's not the typical startup that we speak to.

No, I mean, a clearing bank. We are I've got absolutely unlimited banking license, despite the fact we don't lend. Yeah. That is almost unique. So almost every bank is typically expected to gather deposits and lend. So for the regulator to get themselves comfortable that we would do the gathering deposits and payments bit, but not do the lending.

I think what you would have to say is that the UK regulatory sector is one of the highest bars in the world. So nobody sets up in the UK unless they're really prepared to go for that highest possible standard. The benefit is that once you set up in the UK, you're probably going to be doing the things that other regulators will expect.

Yeah. So if you do have international plans, there is something of a A mark of success that comes from being regulated in the UK that you may not get from some other jurisdictions. Having said that, the bar is difficult to get over. So the whole regulatory approval process starts off with submitting a regulatory business plan.

You have to get permission to submit a regulatory business plan. Having submitted it, you then will have maybe six months, 12 months, in our case, two or three years of dialogue with the regulator about what you're trying to achieve, how reasonable it is, whether they think that's something that should be a regulated business in the marketplace.

You then have an option. You can either go for authorization or you can go down a route that's called authorization with restrictions. And that's becoming an increasingly popular, uh, track for startups because the startup is often in a fairly predictable conundrum. I need to generate capital, but people won't invest until I can prove that I've got a business model that works, but I can't prove the business model works if I've got some capital.

How do I do that? So moving into this authorization with restrictions allows you to sort of operate With training wheels, so you can only do certain things, you can only deposit up to a certain amount, you can only do payments up to a certain level, but it allows you to prove out that the machinery works, that the systems work, and the processes work.

And you then live in this authorization with restrictions phase for Up to a year. Okay. At the end of which, you then either are told, no, we don't think this is a model that works. You might be told, for some aspects we're not entirely convinced about, try again. In our case it was, congratulations, we are going to remove the restrictions from you.

It involves us submitting what's called a variation of permission request that allows us to then formally say, we're an authorized institution. Okay. That was an enormous undertaking. I can't stress, do not enter that process unless you are really committed. Okay. Do not enter that process unless you have built the resource availability to do it because although you can work with consultants and we were very strong support from KPMG who've been involved in probably half of the banking startups in the last decade.

You can't outsource the accountability. You can't outsource the responsibility. You have to live it, own it, breathe it. So, Anybody that's thinking of being a regulated startup, you have to be prepared to invest up front. The regulator would use the phrase investing ahead of need. They want to see you build the environment that you're going to rely on before you actually do the first bit of business with a client.

So it's not for the fainthearted. No. And certainly it's not something you can do off the corner of your desk. Because you're effectively entering. a very significant regulatory market, the UK, and the regulator has a very substantial responsibility for the integrity of that market. So it's not just whether you're good.

It's whether you're introducing risks into the market that they don't want to see. And that's their overarching responsibility is the integrity of the market. But It's serving the customers of the UK and abroad. Definitely a sound advice, you know, get your training wheels and prepare for a long stint.

Um, you estimate how hard it will be and don't, don't, don't do it unless you're incredibly resilient because you will hit so many bumps in the road. Yeah. It's the oldest, oldest story, but it's not. Whether you'll be, you know, find yourself on your backside, on the floor, it's whether you can stand up over and over again and keep on going.

Yeah. Because that's the nature of this. Let's talk about how it's been establishing the business in the market. What's your, got both your opinions on that? Frankie, what, what's your experience or insights into how that's been? What have been the biggest challenges and what type had to be navigated? So as Stephen's articulated, I think the, the energy and commitment required to get to the zero starting point.

All of the things that Stephen's just been describing basically gets you to zero. And that's the point when you can start to introduce customers and it's here. It would be unfair to say it's when the real work starts, but in business terms it is when the real work starts. You, you, you've opened your door and it's, it's time to serve customers.

It's time to build your brand. I think that the positives as I see it, we've built a fabulous team. Like if I look around the business, we've got some incredible people from all corners of the world, but got. Varying experience from startups, scale ups, established businesses, people that have built businesses that are now floated, people that have, uh, held the most senior positions in listed, enlisted companies.

So we've got a fabulous team. Similarly, we've got a real big kind of founding purpose and mission. And it was certainly one of my key reasons for joining, but ultimately what we have to master over the coming period now is three things, certainly from my perspective. The first one, and I would say this, is building exceptional products.

Okay. Um, we're starting to see the fruits of the labor. Uh, the product's been developed over the last two years, but it really has felt in the last kind of 12, uh, 9 to 12 months that we've started to gain momentum, and as Stephen referenced, some product market fit, where What we are, what we have built is resonating the API story that Stephen referenced a little earlier, where we've got clients actively say, thank you.

I don't need the meeting because the documentation is so fabulous. API, a tech led business, although we want to continue conversations with clients where it's not required, we'd love that technology or, uh, Our product speaks for itself. So yeah, client volumes are growing, transaction volumes are growing, revenues growing.

So I think we're, we're on the right track, more work to be done. Secondly, and this is as important for me as it is for Steven and it's great we're doing this podcast together, but clearly, In this type of business, we have to scale, but do so in a sustainable and controllable way. This is not a business where you can scale at all costs and cause yourself issues down the line.

We are part of a fundamental system here and there's customers, clients, and the overarching UK financial services system that's dependent on us and our involvement. So scaling in a sustainable and controllable way. It's completely critical to our success. And then thirdly, I think it would be, I'm sure the same for some of your listeners, fundraising and the capital constraints are very different to when this business was started in post September, 2022, mini budget, as I recall it, interest rates have jumped, investors are just looking at.

Businesses in materially different ways, how you raise capital in the first quarter of September, 2022 versus the first quarter of 2024 is generally like chalk and cheese, how VCs, how family officers, how private equity firms. They just all look at businesses differently. We've had to evolve and adapt to that.

So there's a huge focus on sustainable growth. There's a huge focus on revenue generation, client stories, building out products, but all of that has to be done in a controlled and considerate manner with our regulatory and control obligations all considered. So that's my view of what we need to master and crack over this coming period.

No, definitely. Absolutely agree. I think the, the way the world changed in September 22, I think will live long in the memory and it certainly will not something we'll ever be able to really get away from because it showed how vulnerable the markets can be to even the shortest term announcements that made no sense.

Kennedy. Um, one thing I think any. Startup needs to be prepared to do and this is always very difficult. I mean startups are usually driven by passionate visionary You know, go getting some people you have to be prepared to really stare critically at your business and say how could it go wrong? Yeah, how could it fail?

There's a sort of you need to develop that imagination that ability to think through really difficult scenarios And really challenge yourself because certainly again from a regulatory point of view the single most important Um, repeated trait, shall we say, that new financial firms exhibit is optimism bias.

They think they're going to do best than they are. They're less well equipped to spot when things are starting to go wrong. They therefore are late to react to things that go wrong. I know it can sound quite negative, but It's actually really quite therapeutic to go through that process of what could go wrong here because then we can fix ahead.

Yeah. And that's the thing when Frankie talks about, you know, safe growth. It doesn't have to be slow. It just has to be considered and you have to have thought about how might this go wrong, what would happen if that was to take place over there. And I think, unfortunately, it can be the case that startups are so focused on the upside.

They're not prepared for the inevitable bump in the road. Yeah, definitely. No, I think that's sound advice. And, you know, it avoids any, you know, incorrect forecasting. You know, incorrect forecasting for a startup can be completely detrimental to any future funding. And it's all about de risking, isn't it, really?

It is, but I would say, Don't get too obsessed about forecast accuracy. Okay. I mean, if you're starting off, your first client is an exponential increase on having not to. Yeah, yeah. Um, so here, as we've found, you know, you can take on one client who is like a hundred percent increase. Yeah. Because one big client is Bigger than 10 small ones.

So I'd say, yes, you need to be clear. You need to have a good range of outcomes. You need to be clear that going below that level would be problematic, but I wouldn't want any startup to be thinking that they're going to get any gold medals for forecasting accuracy. Because as the old saying goes, no forecast survives first contact with the enemy.

Uh, and you have to be prepared to adapt. And I think what, what most. Organization will be well served to think of everything as a sort of three plus nine, six plus six calendar where you've got much more certainty on the next short period, but much less certainty about the next part. Okay. So the Bank of London prides itself on putting people at the core of its operations, and you've mentioned a couple of times about your fabulous teams.

And you know, I've noticed that This philosophy isn't commonly shouted about enough, really, in the banking sector. So I'm wondering where those origins of this type of ethos have come from, and how truly important it is, and therefore how are you nurturing that in your culture within this? Well, again, I would say the word you've heard us say repeatedly is around conviction and purpose.

So that's what we're hiring for people that believe in the conviction and the purpose And although it's you say it's not often done, but it's not the first time it's been done I have to remember when first direct set up that they deliberately went for people on attitude rather than Capability. Now, again, there's a clearing value in what we do.

You can't do entirely that. You need to have technical skills. But I think it's important that you don't overweight that. Because what you'll get is then, the people that have done it before will typically do it the same again. We want to encourage people who haven't done it before to think differently about what needs to be done.

And again, it's part of our founder's mentality about inclusion, about looking for people. And he refers to it as he wants to hire people who have scar tissue, who've been through this before. Not people who've necessarily got Harvard MBAs and double firsts from Oxbridge. Nothing wrong with that, absolutely, but it's, it's not enough.

There's more to it. There's people that have lived, breathed and experienced the problems we're solving. People have walked a mile in the shoes of the clients that we're trying to serve. And, you know, from my point of view, you know, I joined Ulster Bank in 2012. And honest, it wasn't me. 12 weeks after I joined, we had the big IT failure.

And although what was then RBS got back on the tracks in 24 hours, the Ulster bank brand was effectively without systems for six weeks, trying to run a 1. 2 million customer bank with no systems for six weeks. Chaos. That was the realization of how deeply you're embedded in the life. of real people. Yeah.

You can't accept their payments. You can't allow them to take money out of their own account. You can't settle payments with other institutions. I mean, the things we learn, I would say, you know, made for a much better organisation. That scar tissue is something that will tell you a lot more than any amount of book learning, as my granny would call us.

And right now, at the time of recording, we're in Pride Month. In the banking sector, I think it's generally quite standardized, right? Generally, you have a script, you have a very tight guardrails on what can or cannot be said. You guys are known to encourage personal expression and difference in your employees, so I hear.

And so I'm just interested to know a bit more about that. How do you guys differ yourselves from perhaps those tight guardrails that are known in this industry? Yeah. So if I, if I take the executive team as a metaphor of our diversity, so whether the only UK bank that's got an openly gay CEO and founder, he's just recently been rewarded for his contribution towards the LGBTQ plus community.

And I think. That kind of inherent focusing on inclusivity isn't just something that affects our hiring. It's how we think about clients, how we think about customers, it's how we think about thought. Antony also has this like deep directness. Okay. Where nothing goes unsaid in a really pleasant way. Okay.

Similarly, if I look at our gender split, we've got a female Deputy CEO, we've got a good proportion of the executive team that are female. We've got people from France, from the U S from Brazil, from Denmark, from Yorkshire. As well, uh, we've got a huge age variance. Steven mentioned earlier as well. I just think if you, if you think of most dimensions of diversity, we see it in all different parts of our business.

And we've also made some. Really critical decisions. In my opinion, we were the, uh, our biggest site by volume of people is in Belfast and that is a fabulous community of people, uh, to deep banking expertise. That wouldn't be known that I, I would never have known before joining. Actually, it was one of the first trips I did just a few weeks in and you've got some great employers over there and it's becoming a.

a competitive market, but the, the level of depth we have in that, in that team is fantastic. And I love going every time I do go spending time with that team as well. So yeah, the way the leadership team, the way the founder sets the business, the way we've hired people kind of definitely represents that.

Uh, we're also the sponsor of the rainbow on us. So we're the primary sponsor of the rainbow honors, which. Yeah. Brilliant. Celebrates all of the LGBTQ plus community across business. So yeah, there's many initiatives that we do, some of which we do probably before we're big enough to do, but I think it's just credit to the team of how we wanted to set up the business.

Yeah. As I said, some real life examples of how that materializes and how we run. The business is, you may not see it publicly because it doesn't really happen in retail, but debanking is a real issue. Okay. Specifically for financial institutions. And as a reference, I've sat in risk committees before in large banks.

And I remember making a decision, collective decision that we were going to stop, we were going to detune the hospitality sector. And that was the PowerPoint one recommendation. It was a decision that we took in reality. What that meant was we were switching off lending to the hospitality sector. That was hotels.

It was shops. It was, it was eateries and that straight away meant that on day one, they could get loans and the second day they couldn't. And that was just this policy because everything was managed at a portfolio level. And this is in no way like a beating up exercise. If you've got a million clients or 15 million customers, you have to operate in a different way.

Yeah. But because we do have this narrow focus, we, we know all of our clients by name. We know all of their leadership team, one or many of us have met that group before. We really do spend time to understand these businesses. We do regular site visits, both ones that are required under regulation and ones that aren't.

So I think these, this focus on inclusivity isn't just something that is a kind of corporate focus. It's something that goes very deep within the organization, every facet that you look. So yeah, that's, that's my view. I think one of the really deeply attractive values we have is around join us and be yourself.

Amazing. We, you know, there are a lot of organizations who tend to have a sort of corporate persona and they hire for fits. We sort of hire for the ad. Now who can bring something different, rather than who, so if ever we have a vacancy, our first thought isn't how do we get another one of them, it's what could we think about differently now?

Yeah. And when we were hiring up in Belfast, I mean, it has the most wonderful third level education, fantastic universities churning out. Hundreds of really high quality graduates because of the nature of Northern Ireland. Some of these people are the first time anybody from that family has ever been to university.

So it's a really interesting evolving picture up there. Some organizations have set themselves up there and set up what you call back offices. What we said to people is we're not doing that. We're going to have a full range of banking roles here. And the other message which I was, uh, I found was responded to very well from people is, let's roll this forward.

Let's say in 12 months time, your line manager leaks and they're based in London. You won't have to move to London to take that job if you're successful. We'll move the job to you. Brilliant. And that idea, because some of these larger organizations who basically say, You can only be promoted if you move to London.

You can only be promoted if you move to the U. S. And we said, no, no, we'll move the job to where you are. How does that sound? And that has landed so well with people who Made a conscious decision to return home to Belfast or Northern Ireland more generally during the pandemic and found It'd be really nice if I could stay here.

Yeah, where are the jobs? And we're proud to be part of a growing community of people who are looking at Belfast and Northern Ireland as an important sector And we welcome All people coming into that market. We don't see it as competition. The other thing we're really clear about is we don't talk negatively about competition.

We don't talk down other people. The problem that we're privileged to have the opportunity to solve is so big and all the merrier, come on in, come and help solve this problem, you don't solve a 2. 4 quadrillion problem by telling other people to stay out, so it goes to the very core of who we are and how we try to be inclusive and how we welcome people.

People from any and all corners of life. And it's usually impacting on, you know, we talk about tech hubs and where are the tech hubs. And if we keep being restrictive with not allowing people to work from the area that they need to work from, because that's their home, well, those areas are never going to benefit from the financial benefits of.

free flowing commerce, really. It's a good point. I mean, when we had a, an event in October 2023, 2022, and our deputy chair of the group board is Peter Mandelson, who was a former Northern Ireland secretary. He has a very strong, passionate affection. Uh, and when he came, he was kind enough to come along to our event and give a, a speech.

And he talked very passionately about The engineering center that Belfast was in the shipbuilding sector. Why shouldn't there be an engineering sector for technology? And really think about it differently. Who are we excluding? Because there are so many people for whom financial services and technology are some alien universe.

And the more you make it London centric, or Manchester centric, or Glasgow centric. You can only draw from that community. So my challenge is, how do you avoid groupthink? How do you bring true diversity? Yeah. If you only hire from the same little pot of people. Yeah. And that's not something we've been very clear about.

We don't. Yeah. We really don't, and don't want to. That's brilliant. Frankie, you've been with us before and you've got a background in corporate banking at Barclays. You then made a transition to 10x and You're now with the Bank of London. So what prompted that move? I know that the vision was particularly appealing, but talk to us a little bit more about that decision.

Yeah, no, Olivia. So for me, I have a very simple kind of framework for career moves. This is the only third company I've worked for in my career. So it's not something I take lightly and I do move. Rarely, but really there's three things. So the company mission and purpose that we spend a lot of time talking about, and is it something that gets me out of bed every day, challenges me intellectually and professionally, and does it just create a fire in my belly to make it, to make it happen?

The second part is, are the teams we've been put together exceptional, and is it a group of people I want to spend majority of my waking time with? Probably spend more time with Stephen than do my wife actually, which is great credit to Stephen. And then thirdly is, ultimately, I think you have to balance bringing something to the party, but also learning at the same time.

I think if you're moving and you can do 90 percent of the job on the day you arrive, it's probably not the right job because it's just not a stretch. And that, that can be moving sectors. It can be moving, Uh, to an early stage firm. It can be moving completely outside of the function that you've worked with before, but ultimately I think what can you bring to the party and ultimately what you can learn.

So weirdly I, so I started my career in 2008, that was September. The share price at Bartles was 5. 50. Everything was going swimmingly. Three months later, the barter share price was 57 P. I was working in a branch in the Midlands, giving elderly people their life savings in cash because they wanted to put it under their bed because they felt it was safer.

Wow. And I was an early twenties undergrad thinking, what is happening in the world? And I kind of didn't really appreciate it at the time of actually what was happening. But ultimately what we were seeing was this kind of just collapse of the financial markets, the confidence and trust. And since then we have this significant.

Do you mean rate change? 10, 10 basis points from five and a half percent. The world kind of collapsed around us for many, many years. But I was fascinated by financial services from that point. So I've been obsessive and kind of inquisitive to financial services ever since. I've I've been lucky since then to have a few different angles.

So, uh, a series A to series D technology firm and now a newly regulated bank. Uh, but ultimately after I spent five and a half years at my prior employer, um, had a great time, was it, was there earlier, but, uh, I also think it's important that you provide your team's opportunity to succeed. I had four or five people that by me moving out meant that they had the opportunity to go and do different things and I've left a fabulous team behind that have gone on to do wonderful things.

But if I specifically focus on the Bank of London, like I was doing some research before I joined and I went on the website and I looked at the executive and the non executive team and I just thought, I just cannot believe this team has been composed together for a firm of this age. Well, the CFO was ex Silicon Valley bank, but we've been through some of the employees where Stephen's been, our founder previously led a significant firm to a public exit, the chair ran Baptist Africa.

It's just a, a team where you look at every single person and think, wow, that's like 50 years of consolidated experience that I'm going to be able to learn from. So the team is amazing. The problem we've spent lots of time kind of discussing today, but I found the problem fascinating and it wasn't. It wasn't something I deeply understood, to be honest.

It was an area I knew existed, but the scale of the problem and some of the topics we've discussed around debanking and how difficult it is for financial institutions to find partners, I didn't really understand until I started the process. And then candidly that I was presented an opportunity for my first sweet, sweet role.

So to be a peer of Stephen's and to have the opportunity to learn from him and, and the others was just something I couldn't turn, turn down. I hope I brought a little bit of insight. I've, I've been part of launching banks around the world from a technology standpoint, but to do it from the driving seat, rather than from the engine is probably the best description has been, has been amazing.

And I, yeah, continue to learn every day. And. Hoping to do my day job in a reasonable capacity on the way forward. Amazing. Well, it does sound like a fantastic opportunity that you just had to take. And on that note, Stephen, you transitioned from senior roles, the likes of the British Arab Commercial Bank, Ulster Bank, Allied Irish Bank.

To a startup environment. So that's a huge change. So I'm just curious to know what inspired you to take that plunge. And that was a later benefit. I'd say it's not as big a leap as you might think, which is actually the fourth time. I've been involved with either an early stage company or actually set one up myself.

I've actually personally set up two different films and I love that sense of being in from the beginning. Yeah. Being able to, it's a wonderful book by a guy called Jack Black, not the actor, but a motivational speaker. And it has this phrase that says everything you see started off as an idea in somebody's head.

And I love that phrase because that's what gets me up every day is that. Something that's in my head today could end up being real tomorrow, next week. Yeah. I, I'll be honest, when I was first approached, I said, no thanks. Okay. It was a, it was somebody I knew and they said, I think you should speak to us. I said, I'm really not, not in that space right now.

Yeah. And he kept, I think you really would enjoy it. And I'm so glad that he pushed, because I had the first meeting with Rebecca Skiff, who's our deputy CEO. And. I was hooked after a one hour conversation because suddenly the, Oh my Lord, of what we're trying to do became such an exciting thing. So for me, the, it wasn't a big leap because I've done it before, but the, the pull factor of seeing this, it was almost like, I didn't realize that was a problem.

And now I see it's not just a little problem again, without using too many banking metaphors. We spent the entire time after 2008 fixing what you might call the superstructure of banking. And the infrastructure was still broken. So this was a chance to say, how do we start to fix that real fundamental elements of how banks talk to banks, how banks talk to corporates, how banks talk to people.

And so for me, it was just a huge draw to be part of something quite as big. Audacious. Yeah. Is this, and I think Frankie used the phrase about sometimes we do things that seem a bit premature for our scale, but there's something wonderful about that. Yeah. There's something about the fact that we were the other last bank standing when SUV went down.

It was us an HSVC that we were in the room and we were only, we were only even a year old, but the credibility that Anthony had, the fact that we have this safe by design model meant we were credibly seen as a potential. Partner to solve for SVB. So, yeah, I just think you don't have those experiences often.

No, definitely. I'm much at the other end of my career. So this young man here, but I'm still learning as much for the last three years I've learned in any three years in my entire career. Amazing. That's what will get you out of bed in the morning, won't it? And our ultimate, our final question on the podcast, what advice would you give to others who are working in or leading an organisation that is trying to entirely disrupt a traditional market like yours?

So from, From my perspective, it's a bit cheesy because it's like a famous person, but these are states. Be stubborn on vision, but flexible on details. Knowing why you exist and what you're aiming to solve is so vital. But like many things in life, exactly how you get to that goal is generally a squiggly line.

So I think just have this, and I hope it's come across today because I, I felt it. Even as we've been talking more and more of like why he started, Rebecca also did a similar sales pitch to me. I was like 8 percent sold going to a different company and then spoke to Rebecca and just got this inherent fire in my belly.

So yeah, stubborn on vision, flexible on details. Give the team the The vision, space and guidance to push towards it, they do it in an iterative and progressive way. Amazing. Can be applied to any startup doing any type of thing. That's my, that's my view. Very clear. Yeah, I guess similar I would say. Don't focus on trying to disrupt for the sake of trying to disrupt.

I think we've all seen solutions in search of a requirement. I think you posted that picture of an AI toilet roll dispenser or something, and you think, what on earth? You know, there's a famous Dragon's Den example where somebody was trying to sell the idea of a cap for a cucumber or anything. That's just plain silly.

So I think be prepared to challenge yourself about What it is you're trying to disrupt and why, not disruption of itself being the outcome. Be really clear on the problem that you're trying to rethink and to the point about being flexible. Keep listening to your intended market. The chances that you've got it right, 100 percent right, R is zero.

You, the nimbleness, the agility, the willingness to listen and adapt is absolutely fundamental to something like this. And challenge yourself. If you, if you actually think you've discovered the secrets of alchemy, again, you're probably wrong. You don't have to in order to be successful. So be really honest about what it is.

Be focused about what you're doing. And be prepared to change, because even if you're right today, you'll be wrong by tomorrow. And I think the one thing that you can't get away from is the sheer pace of change now. Is that what might have taken three years to happen when I started my career, could happen in an afternoon.

I used the example earlier on about Silicon Valley Bank. More money left Silicon Valley Bank in an afternoon, than left in the worst week of Northern Rock's collapse in 2008. That's what happened. With technology enabling people to talk to each other quickly and for opinions quickly and the news getting out quickly.

So just be adaptable and don't get too dogmatic about it and don't think disruption of itself is actually an answer. Stephen, Frankie, fantastic advice. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast and we hope you enjoyed it. for having us. Bern Sheehan's annual technology hiring report is out. Here's why you need to get your hands on it.

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Enjoy.