Challenger bank Cambridge and Counties swings to profit in just its second year trading
Challenger bank Cambridge and Counties delivered a pre-tax profit of £4.1m in 2014, compared to a loss of £99,000 when it was set up in the previous year.
It was established by the University of Cambridge’s Trinity Hall and Cambridgeshire Local Government Pension Fund, using their large asset base to set up a small business-focused lender.
Its loan book grew by 126 per cent on the year to reach £253m and deposits rose 87 per cent to £388m.
Chief executive Mike Kirsopp attributed the remarkably quick turnaround to profit to the bank’s running start.
“It is partly because we already had the team put together – we bought the assets and liabilities and operations of an existing organisation,” he told City PM
“We already had some customers with credit balances, so we started lending particularly quickly.”
The lender also benefitted from a lack of competition when it launched in 2012 and into 2013, as the big banks were still recovering from the financial crisis.