The Isle of Man Financial Services Authority (IoMFSA) has given digital bank CIB, part of investment platform Capital International Group headquartered in the island, a provisional banking licence.
According to Finance Isle of Man, the trade body for the financial services industry in the Crown Dependency, the class 1(2) licence is for “non-retail deposit takers – those that provide services to a very limited class of individuals, and corporates”.
The group said this is the first time this type of licence has been issued under the Alternative Banking Regime, which was introduced in the island in 2016, and it had been trying to receive one since 2017.
CIB will only be able to offer services to individual and corporate clients whose liquid assets are in excess of £500,000 ($604,740, €541,015), when it will open.
Additionally, holders of the class 1(2) licence are not members of the Isle of Man compensation scheme.
Spotlight on technology
Greg Ellison, chief executive of Capital International Group, said: “The provision of core banking services to businesses in the Isle of Man and further afield has been hit hard by some of the traditional banks de-risking and reducing their appetite to provide banking to offshore centres in the past ten years.
“Coupled with the Isle of Man’s Alternative Banking Regime, this has created a great opportunity for Capital International to build a new digital bank aimed at qualifying corporate clients and high net worth individuals.
“We have been working hard for the past couple of years on building the foundations for the bank and have been engaged closely with the Financial Services Authority and with support from the Department for Enterprise we’ve built the business model around the needs of our target clients.
“The bank will use leading edge technology backed by a local management team and pragmatic decision making to bring banking back to business.
“We still have a lot of work to do before we can open the bank, but we are delighted to be the first company to be awarded the class 1(2) provisional licence and we look forward to an exciting future ahead.”
