LHV UK bank opens its second hub in Leeds, UK

By Joy Dumasia

LHV UK, announced the official opening of its second UK office in Leeds. The company’s engineering and development teams will be tasked with building a proprietary online customer portal specifically tailored for the company’s B2B FinTech clients based in the Leeds office.

“If London is the undisputed FinTech capital of Europe, then Leeds is the FinTech capital of the North. Last year, Leeds was named one of the fastest-growing tech cities according to Digital Economy Council, and the city is already home to more than 30 national and international banks,” Macs Dickinson, Lead Engineering Manager at LHV UK, commented. “As the city is a location for the first FinTech accelerator outside of London, it is an ideal second base for LHV UK.”

LHV UK chose Leeds as its second UK office location because of the city’s well-established FinTech ecosystem and the wider region’s highly skilled workforce. LHV UK is currently pursuing a UK banking licence as part of the parent LHV Group’s plans to separate the business operations of its retail bank, LHV Bank, from those of the London headquartered FinTech focussed LHV UK.

Since 2018, the company has operated in the UK as LHV Bank’s UK branch. This move will simplify compliance with regulatory and supervisory requirements and enable LHV UK to highlight its value proposition and the profitability of its operations to new investors. As the complete separation will also include staffing and technology, management decided to establish a strong presence in Leeds.

LHV UK currently provides banking services to more than 200 leading crypto and FinTech companies, such as Paysafe, Blockchain, Currencycloud, Coinbase, Trustly, Monese and Wise. Since establishing a presence in Leeds at the beginning of the year, the Company has recruited more than half of the 20 positions it currently looks to fill in the coming months. The office has enough capacity for 30 desks, with options to scale up its presence in the Wellington Place business hub in the future if required. LHV UK’s banking licence is subject to regulatory approval by the Prudential Regulatory Authority and Financial Conduct Authority.

Rebecca Wright, Chief People Officer, said: “Leeds presents us with a truly unique opportunity to attract some of the best industry talents. The Leeds tech community is overflowing with talented, forward-thinking and entrepreneurial individuals. We undoubtedly have as much talent here as Silicon Valley, and I want people to be writing about how to get a job at LHV UK, not just Google, as we have fantastic opportunities for software engineers at all stages of their careers. LHV UK is possibly one of the best-kept secrets in Yorkshire right now. Not only is our parent company, LHV Group, listed on the Nasdaq Baltic Stock Exchange with a market cap of over a billion Euros, but we also provide banking services to 20 clients that are FinTech unicorns in their own right. The decision to find a secondary office to preserve and build on this success wasn’t easy, but I am confident that Leeds is the best place for us to be.”

“Opening an office in Leeds signifies a long-term commitment from LHV UK our office is scalable, and the leading universities in Leeds produce a plethora of highly skilled new graduates yearly. Whilst we are confident that our London-based operations will continue to do well, we are also aware that there are growing FinTech ecosystems across the country, and we’re keen to invest in the regional development of the FinTech space,” Erki Kilu, CEO of LHV UK, added.