Tandem Money Limited

Tandem Money Limited
Tandem
Industry Financial Services
Founded 2015 (2015)
Headquarters 123 Pentonville Road,
Clerkenwell,
London N1 9LZ
Key people
 Ricky Knox, Founder and CEO
The Co-Founder Community
Products Banking
Number of employees
 80 (2017)
Subsidiaries Tandem Bank Limited
Website www.tandem.co.uk

Tandem Money Limited was founded by Ricky Knox, Matt Cooper and Michael Kent in 2013.[1] The company currently (May 2018) offers a credit card and fixed term savings accounts. It has had a banking license through its subsidiary Tandem Bank Limited, formerly Harrods Bank Limited, following its acquisition in January 2018. Tandem is known as a challenger bank.

Formation and banking license

In early 2016, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar invested in Tandem, as did eVentures, Route 66 Ventures and others.[2] In December 2016, Tandem announced that it had secured a £35 million investment from Sanpower, the group that owns the department store, House of Fraser; however, £29 million of this investment was later revoked by Sanpower over concerns that the Chinese Government would object to the investment following increased restrictions on outbound investment in China.[3][4] This resulted in a delay in the launch of Tandem's savings products, which at the time of the revocation was expected imminently and, more importantly, meant that Tandem volunteered the return of their banking license, but retained all other permissions.[5][6]

Acquisition of Harrods Bank

In August 2017, it was announced that Tandem would fully acquire Harrods Bank, in a deal that would bring a near-£200m loan book, over £300m of deposits and nearly £80 million of capital.[6] In response to this, the bank triumphantly proclaimed, "Some big huge news... Tandem's future is secured..." on its blog.[7]

Features

Tandem money plans to offer a app-based, full-service retail bank, with budgeting features built in, such as alerts when bills increase or a payment comes in, advice on switching energy supplier and automatic advice on how much customers can afford to spend each month.[8] It comes amid a flurry of new, app-based, so-called 'challenger bank' start-ups, such as Monzo (bank) (formerly Mondo), Starling Bank, Monese, Atom Bank and others.[9]

Co-Founder Community

Tandem was established and built with the help of a group of customers which the bank calls "co-founders". Tandem expanded its formerly invite-only co-founder group by asking members of the public to join in April 2016 during a short sign-up window.[10] As part of becoming a co-founder, 5% of the company stock was promised to co-founders in return for helping to grow the Tandem bank community and participating in market research, but at present, the bank is still operating a waitlist for potential customers, as above.[11][12] Tandem held a crowdfunding round in May 2016[13]

References

  1. ↑ "Britain just got a new digital bank and it's raising tens of millions of pounds". Business Insider. Retrieved 2016-05-06.
  2. ↑ "Ebay founder joins backers of Tandem Bank". Bloomberg. 2015-03-21. Retrieved 2016-05-13.
  3. ↑ Williams-Grut, Oscar (2017-08-07). "Startup bank Tandem is buying Harrods Bank". Business Insider UK. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  4. ↑ Williams-Grut, Oscar (2017-03-20). "House of Fraser is pulling a £29 million investment in challenger bank Tandem over China concerns". Business Insider UK. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  5. ↑ Williams-Grut, Oscar (2017-03-20). "House of Fraser is pulling a £29 million investment in challenger bank Tandem over China concerns". Business Insider UK. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  6. 1 2 Barber, Lynsey (2017-08-07). "Harrods Bank sold to digital challenger Tandem". City AM. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  7. ↑ "Some big huge news... There have been some considerable developments over the last few weeks, and we can finally share them with you..." Tandem Blog. 2017-08-07. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  8. ↑ "Tandem Bank - Features". Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  9. ↑ Andreasyan, Tanya (2017-06-06). "UK challenger banks: who's who (and what's their tech)". Banking Technology. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  10. ↑ "Tandem Bank seeks engagement with 'Co-Founder' community; Omidyar invests". Finextra Research. 2016-04-05. Retrieved 2016-05-06.
  11. ↑ "Tandem Bank Co-Founder Shares". Reuters. Retrieved 2017-04-22.
  12. ↑ "Tandem Bank Co-Founder Shares". The Memo. Retrieved 2017-04-22.
  13. ↑ Kharpal, Arjun (2016-04-28). "A start-up bank is raising $1.4M by crowdfunding to challenge the giants". CNBC. Retrieved 2016-05-06.
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