Tandem Bank cuts staff numbers as funding slumbers
Ricky Knox, Tandem Bank
UK challenger bank Tandem is axing 30 jobs after its £29 million in funding fell through earlier this year.
A source has told Business Insider that Tandem has “reduced its staffing levels from around 110 to close to 80. The headcount reduction includes both redundancies and contractors who have not been renewed”.
As Banking Technology reported in March, Tandem was not to receive any further investment from retail chain House of Fraser. The latter invested £6 million in December, as part of a planned £35 million injection.
At that time, Tandem “paused” its plans to offer savings products to customers. This means it is surrendering (temporarily) its banking – i.e. deposit-taking – licence, which it acquired in late 2015.
Ricky Knox, the co-founder of Tandem, told Business Insider: “We actually had quite a few contractors in the room and we now have almost none. That made sense because when you’re going into your digital build to make sure you’ve got enough people to get the product out there you need to add some extra heads in.”
Tandem is in “advanced” funding talks to secure investment to cover the shortfall left by House of Fraser, Knox told Business Insider, although he offers no specifics.
Looking ahead at staff numbers, Knox says: “Will we need to add some more people with a few specialist skills? For sure. But are we planning to expand this team and be 250 people in a year’s time? No, that’s not our objective at all. My dream would be that we keep under 100 forever but that’s not going to happen.”
With so many new entrants trying to muscle into the UK banking sector, Banking Technology has put together a comprehensive list of the known challengers to date and the technology they are using.
