By Mark Kleinman, City Editor
Lord McFall, a former chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, is joining the board of Atom, the first British digital-only bank that hopes to launch next year.
Sky News understands that the Labour peer is among a crop of directors being appointed by the new venture, which is being set up by the co-founder of Metro Bank and former boss of First Direct.
Lord McFall, who will become Atom's senior independent director, was also previously a director of NBNK Investments, which was set up after the banking crisis to buy assets from the UK's bailed-out banks.
NBNK was trumped in the auction of 630 Lloyds Banking Group branches by the Co-operative Group, a deal which collapsed as the mutually-owned lender came close to implosion amid the scandal over Paul Flowers, its former chairman.
Lord McFall's appointment will be announced shortly, according to an insider, alongside those of Jon Hogan, a former executive at ANZ Bank and First Direct; and Bridget Rosewell, a director of Ulster Bank and Network Rail.
Atom is awaiting regulatory approval from the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority but hopes to launch next year.
The new business will not have any physical branches and will be primarily accessible through the internet and digital apps.
Anthony Thomson, Atom's chairman, and Mark Mullen, its chief executive, are understood to be planning to offer a full range of products aimed at personal and small business customers.
These will include current and savings accounts, as well as loan products.
It is not clear whether the pair have secured external financial backing for Atom, which headquartered in northeast England, close to the Newcastle base of Virgin Money, which this week announced plans to float on the stock market.
The plans for Atom come amid an explosion in the demand for digital banking services and a commensurate decline in footfall at thousands of retail bank branches.
Earlier this year, the British Bankers' Association (BBA) published research showing that UK-based customers conducted almost 40 million mobile and internet banking transactions each week last year.
The BBA insisted that branches would "remain at the heart of banking in the 21st century", but it emerged just days later that the taxpayer-backed Royal Bank of Scotland was closing 44 branches, sparking a fresh political row.
Under revised rules aimed at bolstering competition, the FCA has pledged to decide on banking licence applications within six months.
The process historically took several years, frustrating Treasury officials in the aftermath of the 2008 banking crisis, which sparked the merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS, and the disappearance of several other UK banks.
Some applicants, such as Home & Savings Bank, a telephone and internet-based lender, were effectively forced to abandon their plans because of difficulties securing regulatory approval.
Metro Bank's launch in 2010 as the first new high street bank for more than a century came after a similarly tortuous process.
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