Tandem Bank reveals plans to float on stock exchange and hire more staff

TANDEM BANK has unveiled plans to float on the stock exchange as the digital challenger embarks on a hiring spree and moves into new offices.

The start-up bank launched five years ago in a bid to take market share from traditional high street lenders with a digital only offering, along with Monzo, Starling, Revolut and Atom Bank.

Matt Ford, Tandem’s product and marketing director, told the Press Association that an IPO was the natural next move as the group builds scale.

“We want to build this customer-centric business and then an IPO makes perfect sense, having the public buy into that business and it grow further.

“Internally we all have a three, four, five-year horizon to say how big can we make Tandem.

“It feels like an IPO is probably one that aligns closest to our mission. But you kind of read the market as you go but I think that would definitely be our aim.”

He said an IPO would probably take three to five years, but if the company takes off “very quickly it might be at the shorter end” but cautioned that “these things take time”.

The bank’s growth this year has been rapid but since its launch in 2014 its journey has been tumultuous.

In 2017, the company bought the banking arm of luxury department store Harrods, which provided £80m of capital and restored the company’s banking licence, having lost it when a Chinese investor reneged on a £29m investment.

The following year, the company bought money management app Pariti for an undisclosed sum.

Mr Ford, who was chief executive of Pariti and joined Tandem in February 2018, said the company’s move to a bigger office in London in 2019 demonstrates the company’s ambitions over the next couple of years. The bank is moving from its Pentonville Road office in London to new premises in Bernard Street in the new year. The start-up currently employs about 120 people.