Exclusive: Jaja Finance swaps CEO following Bank of Ireland credit card migration

Credit card lender Jaja Finance is changing up its leadership with the upcoming departure of Neil Radley as CEO of the business, AltFi can exclusively reveal.

Radley’s decision will be announced today and comes as Jaja completes the migration of the Bank of Ireland’s UK, Post Office and AA credit card accounts which it acquired last year in a deal worth £530m.

The CEO will be replaced by David Chan, the former CEO of German alternative lender Monedo (formerly known as Kreditech) which filed for preliminary bankruptcy last month.

Chan spent a nearly a decade at both Barclays and Citigroup working in credit and risk, and will take over as CEO of Jaja once his move is granted regulatory approval.

“I’m very excited to be joining Jaja as it enters this new phase in its development,” said Chan.

“The combination of Jaja’s market-leading technology with the scale of the former Bank of Ireland UK credit card portfolio gives Jaja the potential to be a major player in the consumer cards and payments space.”

Radley meanwhile, also a long-serving Barclays executive, who joined Jaja as CEO and chairman in 2018 and is stepping down from both roles, said his departure came at the right time with the Bank of Ireland migration complete and would “enable me to revert to my pluralist role, supporting a range of businesses in the UK and overseas.”

Jaja was founded back in 2015 by three Norwegian entrepreneurs Per Elvebakk, Jostein Svendsen and Kyrre Riksen on a mission to shake up the British credit card market.

The trio originally raised £4.4m from the Pollen Street Capital and the Blystad Group with a £100m funding line for their credit card, before crowdfunding an additional £5m in 2018 in a raise led by private equity firm Celeres Investments.

Last year Jaja made waves by bringing in US investment house giants KKR and Centerbridge Partners for its all-cash £530m acquisition of the Bank of Ireland’s UK credit card portfolio in a move to “become a major player” and also signed a partnership with the bank to become its UK consumer credit card issuer.

While the moves have certainly scaled up the operations and scope of Jaja’s business, the development of its own branded credit card has slowed as a result, with AltFi reporting the fintech had paused rolling out the card to new customers back in July while it focused on the Bank of Ireland portfolio customers.