Digital bank and billion-dollar ‘unicorn’ Zopa Bank has launched its Manchester base that could one day employ hundreds – and its boss says it was Manchester’s thriving tech scene that attracted it to invest in the city.
Zopa began 20 years ago as a peer-to-peer lending company and launched Zopa Bank in 2020. That bank today has 1.5m customers and has lent out more than £13bn.
The fintech announced this year that it had chosen Manchester as its second Ƶ base. It’s hiring tens of people for its base in Dalton Place, and hopes to grow that to 500 over time.
Zopa launched its Manchester presence today with an event at the People’s History Museum, where metro mayor Andy Burnham hailed its arrival as a “massive vote of confidence in our city region’s digital and tech sector”.
Zopa Bank CEO, Jaidev Janardana, told BusinessLive: “We're growing 30% year on year, and as we continue to grow, we want to make sure that we have access to the right talent pool.
“We serve all of the Ƶ, so having more offices outside London is helpful. And that's why we're here in Manchester.
“We've got about 50 people on day one, we’re hoping to double that by the end of the year, and hoping to get to 500 over the next two to three years. So that's our ambition here.
“There are a couple of businesses that we actually want to grow here. So we just bought a payments business, called Rvvup, about two to 3 weeks ago. We want to combine that with our point of sale business and offer merchants a better checkout journey, which is better for customers as well. And that business we want to actually grow out of Manchester.
“We also launched our current account Biscuit… and as we grow that, that means there's more need for us to be better at tackling financial crime and fraud. We want to grow that capability out of Manchester as well, so that's why we're here.”
Zopa , making it a tech ‘unicorn”, and has won backing from AP Moller, Silverstripe and Softbank.
Zopa had looked at several cities for its new Ƶ base before picking Manchester.
Mr Janardana said: “We are a tech-led, tech-enabled bank. More than a third of our employees are engineers, developers who actually write code, another 10-15% are data scientists, and so on.
“So part of the thing that attracted us to Manchester was the availability of tech talent. The businesses we are looking to grow, be that the financial crime business, but also the payments business, is heavily tech-led. Tech, AI, is at the heart of it and that's why I think we like Manchester and we want to be here to access the talent pool that is here.”
He added: “We are very impressed by the development that has happened here and how much of a livable city it is. As we talk to people, given the cost of living and so on, I do feel that this offers a great affordable opportunity, particularly for people who are starting their career, and that is another thing that really attracts us here.”
This morning’s event saw a debate on Manchester’s tech success featuring Zopa Bank’s chief technology officer Peter Donlon, Manchester Digital’s managing director MD Katie Gallagher, and Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s director for digital Phil Swan.
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