OakNorth has appointed Martin Stewart, the former Director of Banks, Building Societies & Credit Unions at the Bank of England, as an Independent Adviser on its advisory board.
Stewart joined the Bank of England in April 2013 and spent five and a half years there. In addition to supervising UK banks, building societies, credit unions and new entrants into UK banking, he was a Member of the PRA’s Executive Team responsible for PRA regulatory policy. His regulatory experience also includes spending three years at the FSA between 2010-2013, where he was a member of the leadership team that defined and implemented the UK’s post financial crisis prudential regulatory regime that now underpins the work of the Prudential Regulation Authority. In addition to this, he has almost two decades’ board-level experience having been Managing Director of a group of European subsidiary companies of the IFG Group PLC for almost four years, and as Chairman of the International Credit Union Regulators’ Network for the last six years.
Rishi Khosla, Co-founder and CEO of OakNorth, says: “Our loans have already had a very significant impact on the UK economy, but Martin’s experience will help ensure we can continue building on this positive impact and supporting the SME community, despite potentially challenging economic conditions in the future. He has an extensive track record in both business and regulation, and over the last decade, has played a central role in not only opening up competition in the UK banking sector which has ultimately benefited consumers and SMEs across the country, but also dramatically improving corporate governance and regulatory best practice.”
Stewart says: “SMEs are the economy’s job creators and wealth generators, and it is their success that will ultimately make or break Britain’s move out of the EU next year. Support for these businesses has been a passion throughout my career where I have worked with businesses ranging from start-ups to major corporates, helping chairmen, CEO’s and government ministers to identify emerging risks and opportunities and then building teams to turn strategy into action.
“OakNorth is not only a success story for the UK banking sector, but also globally via its fintech platform – despite its young age, the business has already had a significant impact on the country’s SME lending sector, helping hundreds of entrepreneurs achieve their growth ambitions, and creating thousands of new homes and jobs in the process.”
