NatWest Group is considering launching a separate digital lender for small businesses in the U.K. to find a new avenue of growth for the bank.
The plan would bring NatWest together with Brussels-based Aion through a new joint venture, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the negotiations are private.
Aion has a banking license and already operates in several countries including Belgium and Poland. A deal would also involve its technology provider, Vodeno, whose data capabilities could help NatWest attract smaller business customers that traditional banks would normally consider uneconomic. Both are owned by the U.S. private equity firm Warburg Pincus.
The U.K. lender could also explore using the pair’s technology to offer financing to customers shopping at retailers, via what is known as “banking as a service.”
NatWest’s venture would add to its already dominant presence in U.K. business banking, where it has about 1 million customers, or one in four companies. The plan has won tentative backing from senior individuals within NatWest but is still at an early stage of development, according to the people. If it goes ahead, both NatWest and Warburg Pincus could inject capital into the joint venture to fund Aion’s expansion into the U.K.
Growth plans
NatWest is hunting for growth opportunities after more than a decade under the control of the UK government, which
The Edinburgh-based bank has also held talks with the private equity owners of the consumer credit business NewDay, whose initial public offering was postponed during market volatility earlier this year, according to one person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named discussing nonpublic information.
NatWest declined to comment on Aion or any other potential transaction. Spokespeople for Warburg Pincus and Aion also did not comment.
Executives believe that while small, Aion offers a technology platform that could make it cheaper to reach new customers and to offer more services such as accounting, according to one person familiar with the matter. Any lessons could be brought back into NatWest’s main SME operation.
Fintech experiments
NatWest has already made several attempts to harness fintech, the catchall term for banking services underpinned by online platforms instead of brick-and-mortar branches. It launched Bo, a digital retail lender, in 2019 but closed it six months later and folded the business into Mettle, which was established to serve SMEs.
Mettle’s chief executive, Marieke Flament, departed in December. She has been replaced by Andrew Ellis, who is also NatWest’s head of digital assets.
Big banks are spending billions on both system upgrades and dealmaking in the search for technological advantages. Lloyds Banking Group and JPMorgan Chase considered buying the U.K. digital lender Starling Bank in 2020, the Times
NatWest has already struck technology collaboration deals in other areas, including with the fintech Pollinate to offer merchant acquiring payments services to small business customers on a platform called Tyl.
Aion Bank was created following Warburg Pincus’s acquisition of the Belgian subsidiary of the Italian banking group Monte dei Paschi di Siena in 2019.
— With assistance from William Shaw.
