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Two former executives of UK banking major Barclays have led a team of financial services experts to launch a new digital bank named “Pennyworth”.

The new digital bank is aimed at catering to the needs of young professionals and middle-level managers.

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Pennyworth is founded by Barclays’ US Digital Consumer Bank former managing director Jeremy Takle and head of product Ben Harvey.

They already pre-applied to set up an authorised digital bank back in March 2020.

Pennyworth is currently in stealth mode and has opened a waitlist with an aim to recruit 1,000 ‘Pennyworth Pioneers’ as part of a beta testing programme early next year.

Under this testing phase, these pioneers will get advanced access to the neobank’s mobile banking app.

Pennyworth will use open banking to provide financial planning tools and services across all its customer accounts, instead of offering its own current accounts.

Additionally, it will offer high-yield savings and deposits, loans and overdrafts facility as well.

Pennyworth chief product officer Ben Harvey said: “We are building a digital bank for ‘aspiring affluent’ young professionals, busy people climbing the corporate ladder with complex financial needs, who would benefit hugely from personalised service and financial planning insights, but who struggle to access them in their traditional form.”

Pennyworth CEO Jeremy Takle said: “Banking is broken and our mission is to fix it by making it easier for busy people with complex needs to achieve their financial goals.

“Traditional banks continue to exploit busy people by providing poor value, impersonal service, and the first wave of neobanks have failed to break that inertia because they are too busy battling to win current accounts that most people don’t want to switch.”