WorldPay and ClearBank® founder Nick Ogden joins Funding Options’ board

By Bridging Loan Directory 10th July 2019

Fintech pioneer Nick Ogden, pictured, has joined the board of Funding Options, the UK’s leading business finance marketplace, as non-executive chairman.

Nick Ogden is one of the sector’s best-known entrepreneurs having been consistently at the forefront of innovation across a range of financial service technologies including founding WorldPay, Cashflows and ClearBank®, the latter being the first new clearing bank in 250 years.

Nick Ogden joins current investor directors Aaron Le Cornu, Alan Morgan, and Jan Willem Nieuwenhuize. His appointment comes at a pivotal time for Funding Options as it seeks to take a leadership position in Open Banking, following its expansion in partnership with ING Bank into the Netherlands this year.

Funding Options was one of the winners of a £5 million grant from Pool D of the Banking Competition Remedies’ Capability and Innovation Fund announced in June. Funding Options has pledged to use the funds to help broaden and encourage access to its Open Banking services delivering wide choice of funding opportunities to small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) across the whole of the UK.

Nick Ogden commented:

“Funding Options has already commenced its scale up by developing an exciting copy of its existing UK business in the Netherlands. With the deployment and opportunities around Open Banking in the UK, we intend to deliver substantial new choice of services to many UK businesses, many of whom are still to understand the changes and choice that is being made available to them. Every business consumes financial services and they are now actively encouraged to shop around for the best possible deal. Having already delivered around £250m in business funding in its start up phase, our mission is to ensure that all businesses understand and take advantage of financial service choice. Open Banking doesn’t mean that bank branches will stay open longer but it guarantees that businesses will have easy and immediate access to a wide range of funding options.”

Conrad Ford, CEO and Founder, Funding Options, said:

“We are delighted that Nick is joining the Funding Options board at this exciting time. He is an extremely valuable addition to the business and brings a wealth of experience especially in establishing and building market leading financial services businesses. We look forward to his insights and contributions as we strengthen our services to all UK businesses through our delivery of Open Banking services. Recent key additions to our team from across the industry who join Ryan Edwards-Pritchard, our UK MD, and Donald McIntosh, our CFO include Chief Product Officer Alastair Preacher from Tesco, Lloyds Bank and Habito, Sales Director Dean Spencer from Lightspeed and Groupon, Commercial Director Simon Cureton from Esme and RBS International, and Chief Marketing Officer David Keene from Google.”