Regulatory News

Appointment of Non-Executive Director

Equals Group plc, the e-banking and international payments group, is delighted to announce the appointment of Alan Hughes as Non-Executive Director with effect from 1 March 2020.

Alan, aged 68, is a highly experienced director with a speciality in fast-growth banks and fintech businesses. He was formerly chief executive of challenger bank First Direct, which grew four-fold under his stewardship and was consistently ranked highest amongst its peers in terms of customer satisfaction. In 2013 Alan led a consortium backed by Blackstone and AnaCap which bid for 312 Royal Bank of Scotland branches, in a deal worth approximately £1 billion.

Alan's previous roles include Non-Executive Director of New Day Group, one of the UK's largest private equity backed issuers of credit cards, and Chairman of Retail Money Market Limited, a leading peer-to-peer lending platform for retail investors. Until 2004, Alan was an Executive Board member and General Manager at HSBC Bank plc.

Alan is currently Non-Executive Chairman of Unity Trust Bank plc, an independent bank with a focus on social benefit, as well as Senior Independent Director and Deputy Chair of Hitachi Capital (UK) plc, a regulated personal finance company.  

John Pearson, Non-Executive Chairman, commented:

"We are delighted that Alan is joining the Group as he brings not only a wealth of industry expertise but also extensive experience as a successful director of fintech businesses. As Equals continues its growth trajectory, Alan's guidance as Non-Executive Director will be invaluable to the Group."

Further disclosures pursuant to Schedule Two, paragraph (g) of the AIM Rules for Companies:

Alan Renatus Frederick Hughes, is currently or has previously been a director of the following companies within the past five years:

Save as disclosed above, there is no further information to be disclosed pursuant to Schedule Two, paragraph (g) of the AIM Rules for Companies.

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About Equals

Equals is a leading challenger brand in banking and payments that disintermediates the incumbent banks with a superior user experience and low-cost operating model. Our business enables personal and business customers to make easy, low-cost payments both domestically and in a broad range of currencies and across a range of products all via one integrated system. The Equals platform facilitates payments either direct to Bank Accounts or at 35 million merchants and over 1 million ATM's in a broad range of countries globally via Mobile apps, the Internet, SMS, wire transfer and MasterCard/VISA debit cards.

Equals provides money movement services to both personal and business customers through four channels: Currency Cards, Physical Currency, International Payments and Bank Accounts. The Currency Card and Physical Currency offerings facilitate multiple overseas payments at points of sale and ATM's whereas the International Payments channel supports wire transfer foreign exchange transactions direct to Bank Accounts. For Corporates, Equals has a market-leading business-expenses solution based around its corporate platform and prepaid card. This service can yield significant savings on a Corporate's expenses and procurement both domestically and overseas, through better controls and improved transparency. The platform also streamlines the downstream administrative processes and integrates into accounting software, thus saving costs. Equals offers retail and business bank accounts with all the functionality you would expect from a bank, namely faster payments, BACs, direct debits, international payments and a debit card.