Bevan’s first two meetings with the PRA and FCA were held online due to Covid restrictions in 2020. Our “Challenge” meeting (following submission of ICAAP and ILAAP) happened in person in May 2022 when London was more or less returning to normal following the ending of Covid related restrictions. Since then, we’ve continued to work with our Advisory Board and our digital branding partners (mark-making*) to define our brand and breathe life into our proposition, prepare our application and key documentation, meet with potential investors, undergo due diligence and take part in the usual procurement beauty parades for banking platforms and internal auditors. We’ve started to think about and meet the people we’d like to work with us and considered how we will create the right culture for our new business in a post Covid world.
The reader of this post may have noticed that the Bevan team have kept an usually low profile in our progress through the New Bank Start-up Unit process and this has been quite deliberate. The drop out rate for applicants is extremely high in the pre-application stage and we’ve all seen examples of new firms entering the process to huge fanfare only to wither on the vine due to lack of funding or the regulatory approval journey taking longer than anticipated. Not so at Bevan. We’ve taken a highly frugal approach to date and taken the necessary time with the process to ensure a high quality set of deliverables. We’re aiming to submit our application by the end of 22. Watch this space.