ClearBank raises £175m to accelerate global growth

The UK’s largest next-generation clearing and embedded banking platform ClearBank today announced a £175 million equity investment led by Apax Digital, the growth equity arm of a leading global private equity advisory firm Apax.

The funds will accelerate the bank’s global expansion of its clearing and embedded banking offering, starting with Europe before moving into North America and Asia Pacific.

Charles McManus, CEO of ClearBank, said: “Over the last five years we have demonstrated the success of our business model and through our work with leading financial service providers, helped to both unlock their potential and bring about positive and meaningful change for UK businesses and consumers.

“The next challenge is delivering this innovation globally. To achieve this, we needed a strategic partner with the right cultural fit, sector expertise and geographic experience, something we found in Apax Digital.”

The first new clearing bank in the UK in over 250 years at launch in 2017, ClearBank is the only payments provider with direct access to all banking payment schemes in the UK. As a regulated bank, ClearBank manages transactions end to end, from order transmission to settlement, liquidity management and clearing.

ClearBank’s end-to-end offering of regulated financial services is accessed via a single API to a cloud-native software platform, which delivers “greater speed, efficiency, and ease of use”. It also enables innovation, including settling payments between customers on the ClearBank platform instantaneously, removing friction and lowering cost.

ClearBank provides over 13 million accounts to the customers of leading financial brands and has a customer base of more than 200 financial institutions and fintechs, including Tide, Coinbase, Chip and OakNorth Bank.

Commenting on ClearBank’s offering, Mark Beith, Partner at Apax Digital, said: “We’ve seen the power of its platform first hand, and we are excited to partner with Charles and the existing shareholders to take ClearBank global.”

Niccolo Ferragamo, Principal at Apax Digital, added: “Combining a banking licence with a modern, agile and scalable embedded banking infrastructure is hard. Doing it at scale, while delivering exceptional customer satisfaction, is truly special.”

Existing investors, CFFI UK Ventures (Barbados) Ltd and PPF Financial Holdings BV, also participated.