Oxbury Bank breaks even as it nears £1bn in lending

Just two years after first launching, Britain’s only ‘AgTech’ bank Oxbury Bank has broken even.

The major growth milestone for the bank capped off a year of rapid growth as it hit £850m of lending.

Oxbury Bank, which secured a £25m funding line from British Business Investments in August, said it expects to reach a full-year of profitability in 2023 and is targeting a £1bn balance sheet by 2024.

“Oxbury’s personal relationship-led approach, supported by our Oxbury Earth banking platform, is essential in serving the needs of Britain’s rural economy,” Oxbury Bank CEO James Farrar said.

“Our customers are the lifeblood of the UK food supply chain and we are delighted to support them in their critical endeavours.” 

Oxbury Earth is the company's core banking platform, which it says enables rapid product development and data solutions that help farmers and the food chain supply to deliver “improved sustainability, provenance and productivity”.

The bank started lending to SMEs in the rural economy in March 2021 and launched ‘Oxbuy NewGen’ last September, an initiative to provide funding and advice for new farming ventures.

It has also launched a new asset finance product to drive revenue growth through embedded finance.

“With the launch of our Asset Finance proposition, innovations in embedded finance solutions in the UK food supply chain and opportunities to deploy the Earth platform in overseas territories, we are confident that Oxbury’s growth and profitability will accelerate even further in 2023 and beyond,” Farrar added.