Metro and Atom founder Anthony Thomson on setting up banks

What is a bank? Like so many simple-seeming questions, there’s a lot hidden under the surface of this one.

For example, who decides what a bank is, who can set one up, and what a bank should do?

On this episode of the Big Money Questions, Anthony Thomson has the answers. He is founder and former chairman of Metro Bank – the first new UK retail bank in over 100 years – as well as founder and chairman of Atom Bank.

Anthony talks through the sheer quantity of money needed to set up a bank, what a bank does… and why Atom Bank has Will.i.am on its board.

He also reveals the secrets of what he calls telepathic banking – how in time Atom Bank ‘should be able to predict your money needs for the future better than you do’. 

Watch the video below for the answers.