OakNorth Bank announces strategic partnership with London payments firm

Business finance specialist OakNorth Bank recently announced a new strategic partnership with a London-based payments company.

This partnership sees the SME-focused bank, powered by OakNorth, teamed up with high-value secure payments platform Shieldpay. Together the companies will launch new escrow accounts for borrowers.

Founded by Peter Janes, London-based Shieldpay specialises in facilitating high-value transactions between parties using its secure digital platform.

Peter Janes, CEO and founder of secure payment solution Shieldpay, added: “The Shieldpay solution has found a perfect home inside of the OakNorth ecosystem.

“The OakNorth offering is truly innovative and coupled with the payment security and risk management that Shieldpay offers, this creates a product that is unrivalled in the market.

“The Shieldpay team is very excited about the partnership and look forward to growing alongside OakNorth.”

Amir Nooriala, chief strategy officer of OakNorth Bank, added: “This latest partnership is another example of two leading fintechs coming together to provide a better experience for the customer.

“This will be particularly useful for our property developer clients where there are often numerous parties involved in a project – architects, project managers, contractors, sub-contractors, designers, etc – and it can be challenging keeping track of all funds and ensuring that all parties are being paid the right amount at the right time.”

This latest partnership builds upon OakNorthBank and Shieldpay’s integration with ClearBank.

A spokesman said it was “exploring other developments with Shieldpay”.

Ealier in the year, OakNorth Bank, secured $440m (£354m) from Softban’s Vision Fund.

The bank has also recently partnered with online savings and investments paltform Smarterly to launch a range of ISAs.