Challenger banks continue to pile up funding rounds as UK based Tandem Bank is preparing to announce a fresh round of £50mn in the next few weeks; the round was first reported in early 2019 which at the time said Tandem was about to raise closer to £100mn and was poised to become the next challenger bank unicorn; Tandem Bank CEO Ricky Knox tells Sifted that the bank is close to profitability and the new round would be decent sized without giving away more specifics; Tandem has gone through a management shakeup in recent months with their CTO leaving and current Chief Data Officer Noam Zeigerson set to take on the CTO role as the bank looks to become more automated; Tandem also announced plans to start charging a monthly fee for cash back credit card users, some of whom took to Twitter saying they will no longer use Tandem when the changes take place; Knox believes the changes will focus the bank on their core customer and remove customers who were a losing proposition for the bank’s profitability plans. Fintech Futures
