OakNorth Bank


OakNorth Bank is a UK bank for small and medium-sized companies that provides business and property loans. The bank, which gained regulatory approval in early 2015, was founded by entrepreneurs Rishi Khosla and Joel Perlman, who had previously founded Copal Amba.
In 2018, the bank’s pre-tax profit was £33.9m. In 2019, the bank increased pre-tax profits by 95% to £65.9m.

History

OakNorth secured a full banking licence from the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority in March 2015 and began deposit taking and lending six months later.
The Board is chaired by Cyrus Ardalan, former vice-Chairman of public policy and government relations at Barclays Bank; and includes the former president of online brokerage E-Trade, Navtej Nandra, and Edward “Ted” Berk, a faculty member at Harvard Business School, and an ex-managing director of Bain Capital.
Francis Maude, former Minister for the Cabinet Office and former Minister for Trade and Investment, joined the bank as an independent adviser in September 2016. Lord Adair Turner, the former Chairman of the Financial Services Authority is also on the bank's advisory board, alongside Martin Stewart, the former Director of Banks, Building Societies & Credit Unions at the Bank of England.In January 2019, Philip Hammond, the former UK Chancellor, became the latest member to join OakNorth's Advisory Board.
In May 2016, OakNorth became the first bank in the UK to have the OakNorth Platform fully hosted on the cloud after working with Amazon Web Services to drive the development forward with the regulator.

Operations

OakNorth Bank has regional hubs in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and LeedsGurgaon and Bangalore.
OakNorth focuses on providing loans of £0.5m-£25m, as well as a range of savings accounts. At the end of 2019, it had 144,000 savings customers and has lent several billion pounds to British businesses.