Coconut founder Sam O’Connor joins OakNorth Bank for current account push

The founder of SME accounting app Coconut, which was acquired by GoSimpleTax in May, has joined OakNorth to support the bank’s just-announced current account push.

Posting on LinkedIn Sam O’Connor revealed that he has in fact been working at OakNorth Bank since August as general manager of transaction banking.

“I’ve been working with the team for 5 months and have spoken to hundreds of mid-sized companies about their banking pain points, and future growth ambitions,” O’Connor wrote.

“OakNorth has an incredibly talented team and a maniacal focus on solving the most acute financial pain points for our customers — customer delight is so endemic, it’s been incredible to see this in action.”

OakNorth yesterday announced and opened its current account waiting list for business customers with revenues of between £1m-£100m.

The account is being developed in partnership with customers, a process it now seems O’Connor has been directly involved with, in order to create “not another option in a sea of apps”.

One of OakNorth’s unique features will be a dedicated OakNorth Business Partner for every customer who will be contactable on the phone or via email and will understand their business and goals, akin to a traditional relationship manager in a bank.