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Atom bank secures £30m Tier 2 capital facility from British Business Bank Investments Ltd

Press release 21 June 2017

Atom bank and British Business Bank Investments Ltd (BBBIL) today announce the agreement of a £30m Tier 2 capital facility to support Atom’s growth.

The Tier 2 eligible facility is a valuable addition to Atom’s existing regulatory capital base and will enable the bank to draw on additional capital in a flexible manner as it grows.

The £30m capital facility is being made under our Investment Programme, which has so far committed over £580m to providers of finance to UK SMEs.

Access to Tier 2 capital at such an early stage of the growth cycle is rare and we are extremely pleased to be gaining this support from British Business Bank Investments.

Together with the British Business Bank, we are sending a clear sign – we are here to support UK SMEs.

This facility provides us with tremendous flexibility. Like all banks, we are actively managing our capital structure and having access to Tier 2 capital at this stage helps support our growth and is a great result for Atom, its shareholders and customers.

Anthony Thomson Founder and Chairman of Atom

The facility will help support the growth of Atom bank and its desire to lend to UK corporates and smaller businesses. It emphasises BBBIL’s commitment to addressing long-standing gaps in finance markets for smaller businesses by investing in small business finance providers and promoting greater diversity in the supply of lending. Atom’s choice to launch an SME proposition in its first product suite signals its intention to be a significant supporter of the UK SME market.

Our investment in Atom bank demonstrates our commitment to increasing the diversity of small business finance by supporting recently licensed and ambitious challenger banks.

We have seen challenger banks becoming an increasingly important source of UK SME funding and we believe a committed regulatory capital facility will not only support Atom’s growth trajectory but will also drive the bank’s ability to lend to UK SMEs.

Catherine Lewis La Torre CEO, British Business Bank Investments Ltd

Further Information

Notes to editors

About Atom Bank

Atom is a new bank, authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the PRA.

Founded in 2014 and based in the City of Durham, Atom has a growing team of over 300 people drawn from across the country, working with partners to bring pioneering technology to Europe for the first time. Atom is building the UK’s first bank designed specifically for digital, offering easy and convenient banking, along with unique and engaging ways to manage money. Atom has been recognised in KPMG’s 2016 Fintech 100, being in the Top 10 companies using technology to drive disruption globally within the financial services industry.

The Atom executive team are highly experienced, having built and run some of the most well respected banks in the UK. CEO Mark Mullen has 25 years of experience in the sector and was previously CEO at the multi-award winning telephone and internet bank First Direct. The team are supported by a strong non-exec board, which includes founder and Chairman Anthony Thomson, also the founder and former Chairman at Metro Bank. He is Chairman of the Financial Services Forum, the UK’s leading membership organisation for senior FS industry executives and Chairman of the National Skills Academy for Financial Services, a national charity. He has also recently been appointed as Newcastle University Business School’s new Goldman Visiting Professor.

About British Business Bank Investments Ltd

British Business Bank Investments Ltd is the commercial arm of the British Business Bank. It aims to earn a commercial return by investing – through finance providers – in smaller businesses and small mid-caps, pursuing investments on a fully commercial basis without receiving any advantage from the government. Find out more at bbinv.co.uk.

British Business Bank Investments Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of British Business Bank plc, the UK government’s economic development bank, registered in England and Wales, registration number 09091930, registered office at Foundry House, 3 Millsands, Sheffield, S3 8NH. Neither entity is authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

About the British Business Bank

The British Business Bank is the UK’s national economic development bank.  Established in November 2014, its mission is to make finance markets for smaller businesses work more effectively, enabling those businesses to prosper, grow and build UK economic activity. Our remit is to design, deliver and efficiently manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government.

British Business Bank programmes support more than £3.4bn of finance to more than 54,000 smaller businesses and participate in a further £5.1bn finance to small mid-cap businesses (as at end January 2017).

British Business Bank plc is a limited company registered in England and Wales, registration number 08616013, registered office at Foundry House, 3 Millsands, Sheffield, S3 8NH.

As the holding company of the group operating under the trading name of British Business Bank, it is a development bank wholly owned by HM Government which is not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The British Business Bank operates under its own brand name through a number of subsidiaries, one of which is authorised and regulated by the FCA.

More information, including a legal structure chart for British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries, can be found on the British Business Bank website.

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