Paul Pester | |
---|---|
Born | 14 January 1964 |
Nationality | British |
Occupation | Businessman |
Known for | Virgin Money TSB Bank Tandem Money |
Paul David Pester (born 14 January 1964) is a British businessman and executive. He is currently the Chairman of Tandem Bank. Pester is also a non-executive Director and co-founder of FinTech accelerator, Archie. He was chief executive officer (CEO) of TSB Bank from 2013 to 2018. [1] [2]
Pester grew up in Plymouth. [3] He was educated at Tamar High School, Plymouth. [4] He has a first class honours degree in physics from the University of Manchester, and a doctorate (DPhil) in mathematical physics from Brasenose College, University of Oxford in 1988. [1] [5]
Pester was employed by McKinsey & Co as a management consultant, before being appointed Group CEO of Virgin Money. During Pester's tenure as CEO, Virgin Money Group launched in Australia. [6] He then began working in various senior roles for Lloyds TSB, Santander and Lloyds Banking Group. [7]
In May 2011, Pester was appointed as the CEO of Project Verde and tasked with moulding a group of 632 bank branches Lloyds was being forced to divest by the European Commission as a penalty for receiving State Aid from the UK Government during the 2008 banking crisis, into a new bank. The new bank was eventually named TSB. [8] [9]
Pester was appointed in 2013 to launch TSB for the Lloyds Banking Group and, in June 2014, listed the bank on the UK stock market. During this time, the BBC reported that he could earn more than £1.6 million that year in pay and bonuses. [10] He stepped down after a significant IT failure at the bank, which he took responsibility for. On stepping down, Pester took a substantial bonus. This was eventually found to be a ‘contractual severance pay agreement’ . [2] Pester participated in subsequent investigations into the causes of the IT issues by the FCA, PRA and law firm Slaughter & May. Ultimately the root causes of the issues were identified as a failure by Sabadell’s IT subsidiary. Pester was not found to have committed any wrongdoing by the FCA, PRA, and Slaughter & May. [11] [12]
In October 2015, Pester was appointed as an advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and HM Treasury on competition issues in banking, sitting as a member of the High Level Treasury Advisory Group. [13]
In 2020, Pester was appointed chair of the Fairer Finance Consumer Advisory Board. Pester co-founded Loop, a money-sharing social networking app, in 2021. [14] He was appointed chairman of Tandem Money in 2022. [15] Tandem acquired Loop in April 2023. [16] He has also advised private equity groups including KKR, Centerbridge, and Pollen Street Capital. [17]
In 2023, Pester co-founded the Fintech accelerator Archie. [18]
Pester lives in London with his second wife, having divorced in 2015 and remarried in 2017. [3] He is also a competitive swimmer and triathlete, having represented Team GBR in the 2022 European Aquathlon Championships in Bilbao. [19]
Lloyds Bank plc is a British retail and commercial bank with branches across England and Wales. It has traditionally been considered one of the "Big Four" clearing banks. Lloyds Bank is the largest retail bank in Britain, and has an extensive network of branches and ATMs in England and Wales and offers 24-hour telephone and online banking services.
Hill Samuel is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group's Offshore Private Banking unit. It was formerly a leading British merchant bank and financial services firm before the takeover by TSB Group Plc. in 1987, which itself merged with Lloyds Bank to become Lloyds TSB in 1995.
Sir Maurice Victor Blank is an English businessman and philanthropist. He is the former Chairman of Lloyds TSB and the current chairman of several educational and charitable organisations including the Social Mobility Foundation, UJS Hillel and Wellbeing of Women.
Andy Hornby is an English businessman, currently chief executive of The Restaurant Group, a British chain of restaurants and public houses.
Zopa Bank Ltd. is a British online bank which offers deposit accounts, personal loans and credit cards. It began as the world's first peer-to-peer lending company in 2005 and gained a full banking licence in 2020. The peer-to-peer side of its business closed in December 2021.
HBOS plc is a banking and insurance company in the United Kingdom, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Lloyds Banking Group, having been taken over in January 2009. It was the holding company for Bank of Scotland plc, which operated the Bank of Scotland and Halifax brands in the UK, as well as HBOS Australia and HBOS Insurance & Investment Group Limited, the group's insurance division.
John Eric Daniels is an American banker, and the former chief executive officer (CEO) of Lloyds Banking Group.
Lloyds Banking Group plc is a British financial institution formed through the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in 2009. It is one of the UK's largest financial services organisations, with 30 million customers and 65,000 employees. Lloyds Bank was founded in 1765 but the wider Group's heritage extends over 320 years, dating back to the founding of the Bank of Scotland by the Parliament of Scotland in 1695.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is a financial regulatory body in the United Kingdom. It operates independently of the UK Government and is financed by charging fees to members of the financial services industry. The FCA regulates financial firms providing services to consumers and maintains the integrity of the financial markets in the United Kingdom.
TSB Bank plc is a British retail and commercial bank based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It has been a subsidiary of Sabadell Group since 2015.
Geoffrey Sumner is a British banker, non-executive director and an independent consultant. He is the former CEO, France and Belgium of Lloyds TSB.
OakNorth Bank is a British bank for scaling businesses that provides loans and both business and personal savings accounts. The bank, which gained regulatory approval in early 2015, was founded by entrepreneurs Rishi Khosla and Joel Perlman, who had previously founded Copal Amba. The bank focuses on providing loans of £0.5m–£25m as well as savings accounts.
Tandem Money is a company that owns Tandem Bank, one of the UK's original challenger banks. Tandem Bank is a digital bank with a mobile app, and no branches.
Atom Bank plc is a retail bank in the United Kingdom. It is the United Kingdom's first bank built for smartphone or tablet, without any branches, and the first digital-only challenger bank to be granted a full UK regulatory licence. The company is based in Durham, England.
Challenger banks are small, recently created retail banks that compete directly with the longer-established banks in the UK, sometimes by specialising in areas underserved by the "big four" banks. As well as new entrants to the market, some challenger banks were created following divestment from larger banking groups or wind-down of a failed large bank.
Richard Henry Meddings, is a British banker.
Debbie Crosbie is a British banker, and the chief executive of the Nationwide Building Society since June 2022. She was previously the CEO of TSB Bank from May 2019.
Nikhil Rathi is the chief executive of the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).