BOLD plans to open a new online bank in the North-East are at an advanced stage, The Northern Echo can reveal.

Atom Bank, on the outskirts of Durham City, has launched a bid to raise up to £75m from investors and continues to recruit staff, as it steps up efforts to become the UK’s first fully digital lender, operating predominantly via mobile apps.

“If things go as planned we could have a FTSE 250 business right here at Aykley Heads in a few years,” Edward Twiddy, Atom Bank’s chief operations and innovation director told The Northern Echo.

New banks have been labelled as ‘challengers’ to Britain’s largest lenders. Between them the so-called big four - Lloyds, NatWest, Barclays and HSBC, control about 75 per cent of the personal current account market and 85 per cent of small business banking, but regulatory changes have made it easier for new entrants to gain a foothold in an industry plagued by scandals and crises.

When Metro Bank was launched in 2010 it was the first new company to be granted a banking licence in 150 years. Anthony Thomson, its Newcastle-born founder, is also the driving force behind Atom, which is one of several small lenders set to bring greater competition to the sector in the next few years.

Atom is on a fast track, which means that over the past year it has been setting up its back office infrastructure, and building financial reserves, in parallel with the process of gaining approval from banking regulators. Mr Twiddy admits this process presents a risk to investors, which includes equity shareholder Durham County Council, who are being asked to put their faith in a venture with no customers, market share or licence to trade. But he is confident Atom will soon be given the go ahead to start offering current accounts, mortgages and business banking online, with no high street branches.

The bank already employs about 70 staff, and has 30 contractors as well as specialist developers working it its offices on a regular basis.

Mr Twiddy, former chief executive of the North East Local Enterprise Partnership, said: “We have people coming in all of the time. Put it this way, all of the taxi drivers who pick up at Durham train station know where Atom Bank is based.

He added: “Atom is being built right here in Durham, largely by developers from the North-East. We are in the final few weeks of mobilisation and as long as we jump though all of the hoops required of us by the regulator we expect to go to market in the early fourth quarter of this year.

“If you compare us to other tech start-ups we are growing at a faster rate than Facebook or Apple were at their inception, although that is the only comparison I would wish to draw with those companies at this stage.”