Digital, Human

Banking lacks engaging brands because it fails to look at itself from the outside, says Mark Mullen. Now the marketer turned CEO has left the bank often cited as the industry’s only true brand – with ambitious plans to create one of his own.
Mark Mullen has something to get off his chest. He’s not entirely happy with the coverage of his new banking venture. For a bank that doesn’t yet have a launch date, Atom has enjoyed lots of advance noise. It’s the slant of some of that pre-publicity that Mullen has an issue with.
“It’s been widely reported that we are a digital-only bank – almost as though this is some extreme version of banking,” he says. “Atom certainly won’t have branches. But I would describe it as digital-first, rather than digital-only.
“We have the opportunity to be an incredibly intimate and human bank. We believe we can do that rather better than building branches around the country.”
Read the full interview by downloading the PDF document.