How Allica Bank Grew from Near-Zero to £3.7bn in Loans in Six Years

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Allica Bank, led by CEO Richard Davies since 2020, transformed from a struggling lender with no customer base into the UK's fastest-growing tech company, according to Deloitte. The bank focused exclusively on established SMEs — a segment historically underserved by both legacy banks and consumer fintechs — and built its own proprietary technology in-house rather than outsourcing. Davies restructured the organisation along tech-company principles, reducing approval hierarchies to give relationship managers greater speed and autonomy while keeping human advisers central to the lending process. AI has been deployed internally to cut costs and accelerate the lending pipeline, not as a customer-facing feature, addressing what Davies estimates is a £9 billion annual shortfall in interest income for UK SMEs. By 2025, Allica reported £371.3 million in revenue and around 800 employees, and signalled expansion plans including the acquisition of embedded finance firm Kriya in October 2025.

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