Monument co-founder hands over CEO role to ex-Barclays boss "to scale the bank"

Upmarket neobank Monument has appointed a banking veteran as its new CEO after the incumbent admitted he was not the “most appropriate” individual to scale the bank up.

Ian Rand, the former CEO of Barclays Business Bank, replaces Mintoo Bhandari, the current CEO and co-founder of Monument, a bank that has ambitions to do mass affluent banking better than its competitors.

Details of the challenger bank that wants to target Britain's wealthy savers, entrepreneurs and property investors emerged at the start of the year after it raised close to £30m ahead of its launch.

The exit of Bhandari from the CEO role of Monument, which has just started offering savings and investment products, might surprise some.

Bhandari is moving to the role at Monument of global head of corporate development, involving talking to investors and looking at potential global opportunities.

Bhandari said: "I have long held the belief that there would come a point in which a highly experienced, career banking executive, would be most appropriate to take the reins from me to scale the bank.  

“I had formally raised the point of my succession to the board some months ago and I am very happy that, with the beginning of the New Year, the day has arrived for me to confidently hand over the reins to Ian Rand, who I am certain has the experience and skills to scale Monument Bank from the solid foundation we have in place to take it to new heights.”

John Saunders, the chief operating officer, told AltFi that Monument wanted “someone with the experience of running a scaled UK operation”, which was “the best thing for the interests of the bank”.

Saunders pointed to Rand’s “real client experience” and his understanding of “how technology needs to work in modern banking” as key attributes for the role.

Rand has over 20 years in banking and has already started the role, which will be subject to regulatory approval.

Before his 12 years at Barclays, Rand was with JP Morgan, which he joined in 2000, holding MD and COO roles across its Markets business globally. 

Rand said: “To date, Monument has had an amazing journey, achieving a number of milestones, more recently receiving its full banking licence and launching property investment lending and savings propositions. Now is an exciting time to help Monument reach new heights as we firmly establish our position in the market.”

In November, Monument received its full banking licence, allowing it to start taking in deposits.

The bank wants to capture a slice of the £200bn affluent savings market in Britain.

Its core market is individuals that it believes have been “underserved” by, at one end, the premier banks and the other the private banks.