Secure Trust Bank PLC

Please remember, this podcast is not investment advice and is for informational and educational purposes only.

Today's podcast, we've got Ian Corfield, the CEO of Secure Trust Bank.

Uh, Ian joined the business as CEO in middle of 2025, uh, taking on a business that had had a few ups and downs and has really done a lot to drive the business forward, simplify the group, and he's got a very clear strategic direction of travel for the business.

They've been performing well, uh, operationally, and the share price has had a good, had a good run.

This is a great conversation, really interesting, and Ian does a great job of making a, what can be specialist complex topic very, uh, easy to understand and, and very user-friendly.

So hope you enjoy.

[upbeat music] Today we're delighted to be joined by Ian Corfield, the CEO of Secure Trust Bank, one of the UK's leading specialist lending banks.

Secure Trust has been lending to UK consumers and businesses for more than 70 years, but the business is entering an important new chapter.

Now, before I get into the aspect of actually licensing humans, I decided to go the opposite direction because there were a couple of people that came across with valid arguments about what should be done to impose responsibility in the production of and the use of AI.

First up is Tom Whipp, who is the Chief Information Security Officer for Secure Trust Bank in the United Kingdom.

And his direction was more in the area of Not looking at it from an automotive example, but from an alcohol production example.

Let's go to Tom right now.

It's good to have the luxury of the options there.

again on the next two side as i said you know great number of of sales you know particularly pleasing uh uh retention rates again super high well over the 90 percent and some brilliant brands deliveroo newcastle united uh secure trust bank um who you remember we you know we've talked to in other guises with happy and insurance um the super exciting thing is is the contract that we've signed to expand our data um you know with mercer who then will become marsh next year um so they they are obviously a top tier player in the space um you know to be able to access their data to expand um our credibility and nectos is a fantastic step forward um And, you know, we'll only really improve the number of leads that come to us that are interested in what we can offer.

We've done some great work on our digital products and started to land some direct sales in that space.

And we've got some conversations in train to white label those products as well.

Combined ARR from Happy and Sage employee benefits reached £7.1 million over the half year.

Inecto, our pay and reward unit, grew 10% to £1.3 million, with ARR from digital products reaching £0.81 million.

And Inecto secured 22 new client wins, as Paula mentioned, including names such as Newcastle, Deliveroo, and Secure Trust Bank.

Moving on to balance sheet strength.