OakNorth is a licensed UK commercial bank specialising in lending to growing businesses and entrepreneurs. It also accepts retail and business deposits and licenses the ON Credit Intelligence platform to other lenders.
For 2025 OakNorth reported £222.5m of pre-tax profit, £605.9m of gross revenue and adjusted ROE of 22%. In the United States the group is acquiring Community Unity Bank; as part of the regulatory process the Federal Reserve required a change to the group's holding-company structure.
Company and banking model
Before the bank, Rishi Khosla and Joel Perlman built Copal Partners, an analytics outsourcing business for investment banks that grew to thousands of analysts; Moody's bought a controlling stake in 2011 and acquired the company outright in 2014, folding it into Copal Amba. Khosla himself had previously passed through GE Capital and Lakshmi Mittal's family office, where he became an early investor in PayPal.
The founders created OakNorth after their previous growing business encountered difficulty obtaining bank finance: the founders' fast-growing services business was refused credit by the high street for lack of "hard" collateral. The new bank received its full PRA and FCA licence in March 2015, launched in September, and focused on the "missing middle": companies too large for micro-lending and too non-standard for a big bank's assembly line.
In February 2019 SoftBank Vision Fund and Clermont Group invested $440m at a valuation of ≈$2.8bn — still one of the largest private cheques written into European banking. The material difference from most neobanks of that wave: OakNorth was already profitable by then, and profit has grown every year — £187.3m in 2023, £214.8m in 2024, £222.5m in 2025.
Scale as of March 2026: over £15.1bn in loans advanced over the decade, £2.8bn of new lending in 2025 (up 33% on 2024), a portfolio of approved facilities of £7.2bn and over 70,000 jobs supported at the companies financed. The entire ten-year default record fits into £6.9m of written-off principal — those same 0.045%.
Products and pricing
The lending core is deals for scale-ups and entrepreneurs, typically in the £0.5–25m range: secured and cash-flow lending, property finance, refinancing for M&A. Brokers point clients to a profile of "at least two years of trading history, revenue over £1m, demonstrated profitability"; rates are not published and are agreed deal by deal. The bank emphasises faster individual underwriting: the borrower defends the case before the credit committee directly, and decisions take days rather than months.
Funding is raised through retail deposits. The full UK rate line-up from the bank's website as of 11 August 2026, with entry from £1:
- fixed term — 4.50% AER for 12 months, 4.55% for 24 months, 4.52% for 36 months; shorter tenors are more modest (3.60% for 6 months);
- notice accounts — 3.15% on 90 days' notice, the 95-day notice tracker — 4.12% (aggregators in early August showed up to ≈4.15%);
- easy access tracker — 3.50%; fixed rate Cash ISA — up to 4.63% for 12 months.
For businesses there are the Earn vault and notice trackers at 30 and 95 days — the rate follows the Bank of England base rate minus a spread and rises with the size of the balance. All deposits are covered by FSCS at the standard limit of £120,000 per depositor, in force since 1 December 2025.
The third product is ON Credit Intelligence (ONCI): a credit analysis and monitoring platform that the group licenses to other lenders. The software splits the US economy into 273 sub-sector models, builds DSCR and revenue forecasts 3–5 years ahead, runs stress scenarios and triages the portfolio by RAG status; the target market is ≈700 American banks with loan books over $1bn. Among its clients, the press has named Capital One and Fifth Third, and PNC has also been reported; the group does not disclose the division's revenue separately. OakNorth Bank uses ONCI on commercial terms comparable to those offered to external customers, allowing the platform to be tested against its own credit portfolio.
In March 2026 the group closed a strategic deal with Monite, an invoicing and payment process automation technology that plugs into business banking for borrowers.
Competitive landscape
The closest competitor by specialisation is Allica Bank: also digital, also focused on established SMEs, but with a smaller ticket (commercial mortgages of £150,000–£10m) and at a different stage of maturity — £43.7m of underlying profit for FY2025 on £3.7bn of loans and £5.7bn of deposits. Old-school specialist lenders — Shawbrook, which listed on the LSE on 30 October 2025 at a £2.58bn valuation, and Aldermore within South Africa's FirstRand — compete on the breadth of the product shelf, from asset finance to mortgages.
Starling, for all its profitability, plays on a different field: its core is current accounts and retail, and large missing-middle loans sit outside the model. OakNorth's niche is speed and depth of analysis in the £0.5–25m range, where the high street deliberates for months and specialist banks rarely go above £10m; hence an efficiency ratio of 26% and an ROE of 22%, unattainable for most of its neighbours in the segment.
Clients, onboarding and limitations
OakNorth considers lending for established UK businesses, including property finance, acquisitions and refinancing. Facility size, collateral, cash flow and ownership structure are assessed individually; complex ownership increases the scope of source-of-funds and source-of-wealth review.
A credit application typically requires two years of financial statements, current management accounts, bank statements and a business plan with debt-service projections. Deposit products are aimed principally at UK residents and UK companies. Structures with foreign beneficial owners may undergo enhanced due diligence. FSCS eligibility depends on the depositor and product.
Financial and regulatory model
The financial model uses retail and business deposits to fund specialist commercial lending: retail deposits priced slightly above the high street fund "missing middle" loans that carry a premium for speed and non-standard structure. The margin between those rates produces £605.9m of gross revenue and £222.5m of annual profit at an efficiency ratio of 26% (29% a year earlier), while cumulative losses of 0.045% show that underwriting speed has been paid for with data, monitoring discipline and a taste for collateral. Since 2024 the credit committee has also factored AI disruption of the borrower's industry into its decisions.
The American expansion came in steps: lending from July 2023 — right after the regional banking crisis — a New York representative office authorised by the Federal Reserve and NYDFS in August 2024, then an acceleration from $0.4bn of new loans in 2024 to $1.4bn in 2025 — 40% of all the group's new lending, on a drawn portfolio of $1.1bn. The target segment is the same as in the UK: the lower mid-market with revenue of $1–100m.
The final step is the announced acquisition of Community Unity Bank of Birmingham, Michigan, in March 2025: a single-branch bank founded in 2023 whose CEO, Greg Wernette, will head OakNorth's American bank, with the team retained in full. The logic is transparent: a charter provides dollar deposit funding and legitimises the scaling of an already working lending flow — Khosla has admitted that US demand exceeded initial expectations threefold.
The US transaction illustrates the regulatory and integration requirements of acquiring an operating bank rather than applying for a de novo charter. In March 2026 the Federal Reserve conditioned its approval on moving the holding structure from Jersey to the UK: the American regulator wants to see a group above the bank in a jurisdiction with clear consolidated supervision. A year after the announcement the deal remains pending — build such horizons into any similar plan.
Regulation and status
Milestones: March 2015 — full PRA/FCA licence; September 2015 — launch; February 2019 — $440m from SoftBank; July 2023 — start of lending in the US; August 2024 — New York representative office; March 2025 — announcement of the Community Unity Bank acquisition; March 2026 — the 2025 results, the Monite deal and the Federal Reserve's requirement for a new UK holdco. As of August 2026 the CUB purchase awaits regulatory approval.
The deposit side lives inside the standard UK perimeter with FSCS; until the deal closes, the American arm operates through the representative office, without its own US charter. ONCI, meanwhile, is sold to American banks as ordinary enterprise software and requires no banking licence.
Q/A
How does OakNorth differ from a high street bank?
By speed and appetite: loans of £0.5–25m for scale-ups are approved at deal speed, the borrower talks to the credit committee directly, and complex ownership structures are considered on their merits. The high street usually deliberates for months on such cases.
Does OakNorth already operate in the US?
Yes: lending has been running since July 2023, the New York representative office has been authorised by the Federal Reserve and NYDFS since August 2024, and in 2025 the US delivered 40% of new lending — $1.4bn of new loans. A full presence with its own charter will arrive after the Community Unity Bank purchase closes.
What did the Federal Reserve require for approval of the deal?
A new holding company in the UK in place of the Jersey-domiciled structure, so that the American bank sits under a group with transparent consolidated supervision. The requirement became known in March 2026, and until it is met the deal remains pending.
What are OakNorth's deposit rates?
As of 11 August 2026, per the bank's website: 4.50% AER on the 12-month fix and 4.55% at 24 months, 4.12% on the 95-day notice tracker, 3.50% on the easy access tracker, and up to 4.63% on the fixed Cash ISA. Entry from £1, with exact terms in the Key Product Information; deposits are covered by FSCS up to £120,000.
What is ON Credit Intelligence?
A credit analysis platform that grew out of the bank's internal tool: 273 sub-sector models of the US economy, DSCR forecasts over 3–5 years, stress scenarios and portfolio monitoring. The group licenses it to other lenders — according to press reports, its clients have included Capital One, Fifth Third and PNC.