Mark Mullen, Atom Bank: "Were not trying to fix a broken culture – were creating a new one"

Could you walk us through your thoughts when deciding to launch Atom Bank? How did it all start and how is your business model different from a traditional bank?

Myself and Anthony Thomson believed (and continue to believe) that UK customers get a pretty mediocre deal from their banks. We wanted to see whether we could do something about that so we sat down to plan the development of Atom. What’s different? Most obviously, we’re app based so we don’t have branches and we don’t have traditional contact centres but the differences run much deeper. We’re not trying to fix a broken culture – we’re creating a new one. We’re not sitting in some glossy headquarters in London – we’re based in the North East of England. We only manufacture products where we really believe that we can do it better than existing banks so we’re helping savers, lending to small businesses and very, very soon we’ll be lending to personal mortgage customers. We’re also building a current account and we’ll connect that current account to the products we make, but also to the products we don’t. Maybe that’s the biggest difference between ‘new world’ and ‘old world’ banks – we don’t believe that ours’ is always going to be the best product for the customers so we can use technology to connect customers to a much wider range of offers. One size fits some but it never fits everyone.

The UK has been very welcoming to Atom Bank opening office in one of the dominant fintech hubs of the world. What are the changes that you foresee for your company post-Brexit (if any)?

Brexit has created some unwelcome uncertainties and it’s been a bit of a distraction, one that’s likely to rattle on for a long time. But really, we’re not changing our plans. The UK market is a very big one and there’s more than enough opportunity to build a successful franchise here. We’ll certainly turn our attention to the rest of Europe and maybe the rest of the world in time, but for now, a real focus on the UK is just fine.

You mentioned during MoneyConf event that challenger banks that say they target millennials is lazy marketing, perhaps you could explain what you mean by that? Who is your target and how do you plan to reach to them?

Chucking millions of people into a pot called millennials seems a bit simplistic. As far as I’m concerned, attitudes unite, age divides. We see progressive attitudes across a very wide age ranges – from 8 to 80. We also see differences in attitude and behaviours among younger customers. Some are more than happy with branch banking, some not. Some are really engaged in understanding and managing money and others less so. That has to be reconciled with the reality that a strong and stable bank benefits from a balance of different types of customers – old and young, rich and poor, short term and long term, savers and spenders. Building a bank purely for one of these groups might sound engaging but it doesn’t necessarily help you create a self-sustainable and strong business.

Is disruptive banking an overstatement? Also, could you portray the future of banking by providing 3 examples of trends that will completely reshape the industry by 2020?

Disruptive banking is not an overstatement but we’re still in the early skirmishes. The real war for customers hasn’t started and it won’t start until there are a number of really credible alternatives to the big banks offering current accounts. So it’s an industry full of potential but it has a way to go to realise that potential and you’ve got to cut through the froth to get to the facts. I’m really very uncool when I insist that there’s value in the banking model or when I insist that customers want more than to be able to view detailed receipts or to know how much they spent on coffee. But here’s the thing, they do! Price still matters because at the end of the day this is still about money. Borrowing and saving still matters and clever use of data doesn’t solve every problem however much we might want to believe it does.

As to three trends – first let’s see where regulation goes because it’s such a big influence on competition and at the moment its moving slowly and it doesn’t appear to be making the big banks quake in their boots. Second, AI for sure will continue to transform our lives (and our expectations of banks) in more ways than I could list and third, I really believe in the potential of biometrics to revolutionise the way that people interact with machines (and through them, with the people around them).

What is on Atom Bank’s roadmap for the next 2 years?

Lot’s of things but nothing more important than building the right team and the right culture to support that journey. All businesses, banks, tech firms or retailers are expressions of the people who imagine, build and run them. If you don’t get the people right, no amount of money or technology will sustain your success. And anyway, I have no desire to be successful if it means leaving people out of the picture.

About Mark Mullen

Mark is the CEO and Co-Founder of Atom. He comes from HSBC Group where he was since 2000. Mark is a career marketer and banker who started out in 1989 at Forward Trust Group, the finance house and leasing subsidiary of Midland Bank plc where he spent a decade working in a number of businesses including personal finance, vehicle finance, asset finance and corporate strategy.

About Atom Bank

Atom Bank is determined to set the agenda for what the future of banking looks like, providing a branch-free, banking experience. Giving customers the ability to manage their own money just by using the Atom App. A dedicated 24/7 support team will be on hand to help with any customer queries. Atom’s App is built on a gaming platform to help enhance the day to day banking experience.