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4. ClearBank

Company: ClearBank

CEO: Charles McManus

Website: https://clear.bank/

About ClearBank

 

 

Established in 2015, ClearBank is the UK’s first clearing bank in 250 years. Unlike other providers with legacy systems, ClearBank’s end-to-end offering of regulated financial services is accessed via a single API to a cloud-native software platform, which delivers greater speed, efficiency, and ease-of-use. It also enables innovation, including settling payments between customers on the ClearBank platform instantaneously, removing friction and lowering costs.

Before ClearBank, the market was dominated by four traditional banks reliant on legacy technology, resulting in a lack of innovation in the market. In fact, over half of fintechs felt that their existing bank was more focused on loans and funding/debt products than developing more technology-led offerings.

Unlike its competitors, ClearBank funds are held securely at the Bank of England and it does not lend, provide credit or invest, therefore 100% of client funds are held at all times. Additionally, ClearBank does not provide services to corporates or consumers, which means that the bank does not compete with its customers.

Despite sector turbulence and a challenging macroeconomic landscape, ClearBank has continued to grow and gain customers, including Allica Bank, one of the UK’s newest banks, making use of ClearBank’s unique combination of fully licensed banking services and next-generation technology platform to provide dedicated business banking and lending products.

Today, ClearBank supports 200 regulated financial institutions, from banks and fintechs to credit unions and digital asset firms, and over the last year it has:

● Deepened its UK market footprint: ClearBank welcomed a host of major new institutions including Kroo, PEXA, Raisin, and WealthKernel as it added 39 new customers in 2022 (+22% YoY). The exclusive partnership with PEXA has created an entirely new payment system and the world’s first fully digitised property settlement process. This development promises to streamline the UK mortgage process improving the speed, efficiency and UX for property buyers. Customer growth drove 70m (+46% YoY) in annual transaction volumes.

● Seen huge growth in embedded banking: Following its successful and award-winning partnerships with Tide in 2020 and Chip in 2021, ClearBank welcomed Raisin as its third embedded banking partner in 2022. Embedded banking end users have grown to 629k (+86% YoY) by year end.

● Expanded its product offering: ClearBank ramped up its FX and multicurrency offering, expanding FX to 64 quotable currency pairs across 12 markets worldwide with a longer trading window. The addition of Confirmation of Payee to its platform has made payments smoother and more secure for end users. The bank has also commenced development work for direct access to Target2, SEPA CT, and SEPA Instant.

● Secured investment for international expansion: ClearBank secured £175 million in primary and secondary funding, led by the Apax Digital Fund and its current investors, to accelerate global service expansion and submitted its draft European Banking application to the Dutch central bank. The bank plans to offer its clearing and Embedded Banking platform to European customers in 2023, before expanding into North America and other markets.

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