Yahoo Finance Isle of Man bank owned by Brexit backer wins City licence
An Isle of Man bank owned by Brexit backer Jim Mellon has won a City licence that will allow it to accept deposits in the UK.
Conister Bank, a subsidiary of Mr Mellon’s Manx Financial Group, has been granted permission by the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) to accept deposits in a bid to boost its balance sheet.
Shares in Manx Financial, which is listed on London’s smaller Aim market, jumped nearly 6pc on Monday to 16.7p, valuing the group at £19.2m.
Mr Mellon, the British billionaire investor who is resident in the Isle of Man, donated around £100,000 to the Leave.EU pro-Brexit campaign, which was set up by Arron Banks and Richard Tice in 2015.
He also introduced Mr Banks to Nigel Farage, who were later dubbed the “Brexit bad boys”.
In 2015, Mr Mellon told The Telegraph: “I think it is going to be a much narrower vote than expected because as we get closer to the referendum the arguments to be made by the no camp will be very powerful.
“I think the principle argument is, ‘let’s just be brave, let’s go into the unknown and see if we can’t become a rapidly growing country like in the Far East.’ I don’t think there is anything to stop us from doing that.”
Mr Mellon started his career as a fund manager in Hong Kong and made his fortune in Russia by snapping up share coupons from local traders before a number of major privatisations.
He was credited with forecasting the 2008 financial crisis years before it happened, publishing a book in 2005 titled Wake Up! Survive and Prosper in the Coming Economic Turmoil.
Manx Financial was previously part-owned by Mr Banks, who sold off his stake in the group in 2020.
Douglas Grant, chief executive of Conister, said: “Obtaining PRA authorisation for our UK branch to accept deposits not only serves as validation of our growth strategy by both our principal regulator and the UK regulators, but it also marks a significant milestone in the group’s evolution.
“Authorisation will provide Conister with access to UK deposits, supplementing liquidity received from its loyal Isle of Man depositors. We will deploy this additional liquidity to build on our reported record lending in the first half of this year as we expect to lend a record £0.4bn this year.”
