About Us

Savings

Traditional financial service providers are often burdened with costly overheads including expensive branch networks, inflexible technology and huge armies of people. At Castle Trust Bank, we keep our overheads to a minimum and we use savings proceeds to fund our flexible lending solutions.

In the past, we offered investment products to our customers which proved very popular. As a bank, we now offer savings accounts, giving our customers the added benefit of FSCS protection for their deposits. Our history means that we have a strong understanding of what our customers need and have built our savings range with those customers and their needs front of mind.

In a complex world, we strive for openness and clarity. We place the highest importance on treating our customers fairly not just because it's the right thing to do but because we know that the trust of our customers is crucial to our future success.

Mortgages

We recognise that for many mortgage customers, traditional solutions don't cut the mustard. These customers can often have high quality assets but unconventional income and so find it difficult to borrow at reasonable rates and on sensible terms.

What experienced buy to let investors, high net worth* individuals and business owners need is lending with imagination. They need a lender that recognises cash flow and net worth are not the same thing. They need a lender that is flexible in their approach and makes considered, logical decisions. Castle Trust Bank is that lender.

* Subject to compliance with regulatory requirements. Please note that an APRC is generated as part of the application process.

Retail Finance

We also offer point of sale finance through our Omni Capital Retail Finance arm. Partnering with retailers nationwide, we support their business by offering finance plans to their customers. Our OmniPort technology gives retailers paperless credit approval which fits seamlessly with their sales processes and customers can use our dedicated customer portal to keep up to date with their loans.

Skilled and experienced team

Castle Trust Bank is led by an experienced team of senior executives from a broad range of backgrounds. We take the best of our combined experience in product design, finance, technology and operations to deliver exceptional value to our customers.

Executive management team

Martin Bischoff
Chief Executive Officer

Martin joined Castle Trust Bank as Chief Executive Officer in April 2018. With a background in the retail banking sector, he brings a wealth of experience. Previous roles include Managing Director Retail Distribution at Santander, as well as director roles within the Royal Bank of Scotland Group both in the UK and USA. Over the years, he has led transformational change programmes across all channels. Martin is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland.

Paul Lloyd-Jones
Chief Financial Officer

Paul joined Castle Trust Bank in May 2018 and was appointed to the Board in May 2019. He held roles within Barclays Bank over the previous ten years, most recently as Managing Director, Business Planning and Analytics for Barclays Group Financial Control, and before that as Finance Director, Barclays Investment Bank – Markets. Prior to this, Paul was a senior finance manager at Santander, having trained at Deloitte.

Helen Hancock
Chief People Officer

Helen joined Castle Trust Bank in September 2020 to shape the people strategy for the next stage of the Bank’s journey. She has over 25 years’ experience working in HR, most recently as the Chief People Officer at Amigo Loans prior to which she was HR Director at the AA. Helen has held senior HR and Change roles at British American Tobacco, Alldays Convenience Stores and B&Q. She has a postgraduate degree accredited by the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development from Solent University.

Andrew Macdonald
General Counsel

Andrew joined Castle Trust Bank in January 2015, having previously held the role of Head of Legal at Europe Arab Bank where he was responsible for the Legal Operations of the Arab Bank group throughout Europe. Prior to this, he had worked in private practice at the law firms Slaughter and May and Sidley Austin where he had advised clients worldwide on a wide variety of banking and financial services matters. Andrew is a Solicitor with a Jurisprudence degree from Oxford University.

Caroline Baker
Chief Compliance Officer

Caroline joined Castle Trust Bank in 2016. She has spent over 20 years working in regulated financial services firms, including 8 years at Barclays, both in retail and private banking. In addition to her extensive experience in Compliance, she is also Castle Trust Bank’s Money Laundering Reporting Officer and Data Protection Officer. She holds a Bachelor of Laws degree, a Professional Postgraduate Diploma in Governance, Risk and Compliance and is a Fellow of the International Compliance Association.

Barry Searle
Managing Director, Property

Barry joined Castle Trust Bank in May 2014, having previously been a Founding Director of Portillion, a start-up mortgage and savings bank, which closed in 2012, then Chief Operating Officer of Legal & General’s Mortgage division until December 2013. Barry was Operations Director at Private Label Mortgage Services, the UK’s largest independent mortgage packager when bought by GMAC RFC in 2000. He became Marketing Director, then Chief Operating Officer in 2003. From start-up in 2000, GMAC RFC was the tenth largest UK mortgage lender in 2006.

Jon Higgs
Chief Risk Officer

Jon joined Castle Trust Bank in May 2016, having previously worked at the Bank of England where he performed a range of deposit-taker supervisory roles before leading the Bank of England’s project to implement the European legislation, CRD IV in the UK. His previous roles have been in credit risk at the FSA and Barclays Bank. Jon holds the Professional Risk Manager qualification and has a Masters in Financial Risk Management from the ICMA centre at Henley Business School.

Phil Edwards
Managing Director, Omni

Phil was promoted to Managing Director, Omni, in August 2022, having joined Castle Trust Bank in October 2017 as Commercial Development Director. He has over 20 years’ experience in financial services and telecoms. Previous roles include Head of Commercial Development at NewDay, and Global Director of M-Commerce Wallet Services at Telefonica. Phil holds a BSc in Business Management.

Nick Bennett
Chief Technology and Operations Officer

Nick joined Castle Trust Bank in March 2021, having previously held senior leadership roles at Tandem Bank and Santander. At Tandem, he was COO with oversight of Operations, IT, Information Security and Supplier Partnerships, leading on creating strategy and plans that supported Tandem’s growth. At Santander, he was Director of Change Management, then COO of its SME and Corporate Bank, where he was in charge of the bank’s significant investment in both its technology and operations as part of a rapid growth in its franchise. Previously, Nick worked in management consulting for both Accenture and EY. He holds an MA from the University of Oxford and an Executive MBA from IE Business School.

The journey so far

Castle Trust Bank was launched as 'Castle Trust' in October 2012 with backing from leading US private equity firm J.C. Flowers & Co., initially offering investment products and specialist mortgage finance. J.C. Flowers & Co. continue to be Castle Trust Bank's principal shareholder to this day.

As the business grew, it expanded its operations with the acquisition of Omni Capital Retail Finance in 2017, adding point of sale finance to its range of services.

In 2018 we were delighted to be invited to pursue an application for a banking licence, and in June 2020 we became Castle Trust Bank – a fully authorised bank. We’ve offered new fixed-term, fixed rate savings accounts to existing customers since the end of 2020, and launched online savings accounts to new customers in August 2021. In May 2024, we expanded our savings range by launching online notice accounts. Our administration hub in Basingstoke and our City of London office already serve almost 180,000 customers across our savings, specialist mortgage finance and retail finance arms. Our most recent Net Promoter Scores of +33 for our savings business, and +57 and +62 for Omni partner retailers and customers respectively demonstrate the high level of service we provide to our customers - and our status as a bank continues to provide a springboard for our plans to grow.

Our ambitious growth strategy is overseen by our Chief Executive Officer Martin Bischoff, who has extensive experience in the retail banking sector, including senior roles at Santander and Royal Bank of Scotland Group in the UK and USA. Martin is supported by an experienced and prestigious Board, chaired by Ken Stannard. See full details of our Board of Directors here.

To find out more about the latest financial performance of Castle Trust Bank, the latest annual report and accounts can be found here and Pillar 3 disclosures can be found here. You can also find our Financial Strength Summary here. Previous years' accounts can be found here.

Castle Trust Bank is proud to have signed the Women in Finance Charter.

Our Environment, Social and Governance commitment

We recognise that we play an important role in helping to protect the environment and support social initiatives whilst making sure our business is well governed. That is why we have developed our ESG plan, a copy of which you can be found here. Our plan aims to preserve the measures we already have in place and set ambitious targets for the next year and beyond.

Our values

Our values are a key part of our culture and drive everything that we do. Our values are:

Customers First - we place customers at the heart of everything that we do.

Forward Thinking - investing in our people, our business and our future.

Professional Pride - we treat people the way we want to be treated and we take pride in everything that we do.

Achieve Together - one team, making a difference.

Open and Transparent - we're approachable, authentic and open minded.

We hope that you see these values in action every time you interact with Castle Trust Bank and we welcome your feedback on how we are doing.

Looking for more information on our financial strength?

This website is for authorised intermediaries only. This information has not been approved for use with customers and is not intended for public or customer use. Please confirm that you are an intermediary before accessing information on this website.

Confirm