Masthaven Bank: Most Innovative Digital Retail Bank UK 2018

Managing Director: Jon Hall

It sounds so simple, only it isn’t. Online retail banks realise full well that advances in technology may wow customers, but it is the human touch that begets business. The question is how to extract synergies and tangible benefits from digits whilst keeping close to the customer and his or her unique banking needs and expectations. The UK’s Masthaven Bank, on the leading edge of a second wave of disruptor banks seeking to challenge established convention, has put its customers in charge.

Surprisingly, Masthaven Bank refrains from deploying complex and often indecipherable algorithms and credit scoring mechanisms to gauge its accountholders. Instead, the bank’s staff is well-trained to treat each customer as an individual who deserves the benefit of manual underwriting. This way, accountholders are not reduced to an entry on a spreadsheet to be marked according to strict, secretive, and often bewildering rules.

Masthaven Bank has designed a comprehensive range of streamlined products that are easy to explain. The result of this approach is a suite of premier financial products that derive their sophistication from simplicity rather than complexity. Masthaven Bank is thus able to offer its savers a number of flexible account options that keeps the customer in control. The bank’s tailored savings bonds have consistently ranked near the top of Best Buy tables. Remarkably for an online-only bank, the average age of Masthaven Bank’s savers hover around sixty. Customers appreciate the ease with which the bank may be approached – there is no labyrinth of automated message to navigate: callers get connected to a knowledgeable agent each and every time.

The CFI.co judging panel notes that Masthaven Bank also offers second mortgages, bridge financing, and purpose-designed credit lines for small and medium-sized house builders. The judges are particularly pleased to note that Masthaven Bank has redefined the online-only banking by rescuing – and celebrating – the human dimension. The judges agree to declare Masthaven Bank winner of the 2018 Most Innovative Digital Retail Bank UK Award.