UK bank ramps up fight for savers after rebrand
The battle to bank Britain’s savers has ramped up with the arrival of a new name, set to challenge ‘easy access’ incumbents such as JP Morgan’s Chase, Goldman Sachs’ Marcus and fintechs like Oaknorth.
The former UK arm of Jamaica National Group, previously dubbed JN Bank UK, has revamped its operations after being sold in 2024 and relaunched under the moniker Thisbank.
The sale, which was completed in 2024, transferred a 75 per cent stake to Step One Money UK (SOMU) with the bank later receiving a £20m injection from SOMU in early 2025 to power forward market expansion and tech growth.
Taking forward the banking licence secured by JN Bank UK in 2018, Thisbank holds over 45,000 retail lending customers and aims to drive up the pressure in the savings market.
“We don’t just want to follow the market, we want to deliver what our customers need,” chief executive Chris Waring said.
“Our promise is simple – competitive, sustainable savings for customers.”
Rise of ‘human touch’ banking
The bank’s portfolio centres on ‘easy access’ accounts with rates across two to five year deposits. Lower limits begin at £1 ranging up to £500,000.
For the year-ending March 2025, JN Bank UK made a £9.6m loss. This was some improvement from the £11m the year prior as net interest income surged 60 per cent.
Loan book expansion was recorded at 234 per cent in the year, exploding to £277m from £83m after it bought chunks of existing loans from other firms’ portfolios.
The firm’s total equity shot up by nearly 200 per cent after the bank issued £9.1m in new shares to its new owner. It also received a £16m boost from SOMU as part of a share premium.
Declan Halton-Woodward, the former business operations head at Germany’s Handelsbanken and ex-Metropolitan police officer, was appointed chief transformation officer in March 2025, tasked with overseeing the relaunch as Thisbank.
Despite closing its one and only branch, the bank has pledged to deliver a “service that feels human,” without the integration of AI into customer service points.
The sentiment echoes similar rebrands from UK banks in recent months who have sought to scale up their “human-touch” in a bid to hold onto and attract new customers.
In December, HSBC promised to keep all bank branches open until 2027, following suit with Nationwide, which made the promise until 2030.
Digital lender Starling rebranded in the second half of 2025 with the new motto “good with money” amid the rush to offer a human alternative. Similarly, after its 2025 rebrand Vanquis presented itself as “the bank that’s got your back”.