The Bank of London has launched as the 6th principal clearing bank of the United Kingdom with a mission to “lift communities and power the borderless economic infrastructure of the future.”
Led by an executive team of industry pioneers and a board of international leaders, the bank enters the market “with a $1.1 billion valuation, making it the first pre-revenue bank in history to attain ‘unicorn’ status upon debut.”
The Bank of London reportedly acquired its first bank license as the 6th principal clearing bank of the UK – “becoming only the second new clearing bank in more than 250 years.”
New financing has been led by ForgeLight, and follow-on investment from 14W Venture Partners and Mangrove Capital Partners, with “further additional investment committed over 18 months.”
Securing $120 million to-date, with $90 million in this round, “immediately ranking the bank in the UK’s top 10 most valuable fintechs.”
As part of its growth strategy presently underway, the bank is in “advanced talks with regulators in the European Union (EU) and North America (NA).”
The firm is currently on track to recruit more than 3,000 professionals across the UK, EU and NA over “the next five years.” The majority of these hires “will be initially made in the UK,” the announcement confirmed.
Anthony Watson, Founder & Group Chief Executive of The Bank of London, stated:
“We’ve spent over four years working quietly in the background, bringing together veteran banking experts, leading creative innovators and visionary technologists to build, patent and validate truly game-changing technologies and innovations to transform the very fundamentals of banking.”
He added:
“We leverage our leading-edge proprietary technology innovations and differentiated bank capabilities to remove unnecessary risk, unlock liquidity and deliver revolutionary products and services at significantly lower costs to enable near instant settlement without a financial intermediary in the flow of funds.”
Harvey Schwartz, Group Chairperson of The Bank of London, remarked:
“The Bank of London is going to address an arcane part of the global financial system – the sleepy worlds of clearing and global transaction banking. I was honoured to spend 21 years of my career at one of the leading financial institutions, retiring from Goldman Sachs in 2018 as President and Co-Chief Operating Officer. During the great financial crisis, I saw first-hand how the legacy payments, clearing and settlement processes that are at the heart of the global financial system contributed to bringing the world’s economies to their knees, through their inefficiencies and inherent liquidity risk.”
He continued:
“Fundamentally, banking is basically an immensely complex data problem. The Bank of London is the solution. And our unique solution is simplicity.”
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