THE upcoming General Election will not get in the way of a £100m fund raising drive by fledgling North-East bank Atom, bosses at the lender have insisted.

After securing a £25m vote of confidence from investors the Durham City bank has already turned its attention on securing four times that amount next May to give it the seed capital for loans to its business and private customers.

Atom, which will run an online-only operation with no high street branches, is pressing ahead with its funding bid and remains confident it will be granted a banking licence by the Bank of England in the coming months.

Asked if the potential change of government could disrupt Atom’s plans ahead of its launch next summer, Edward Twiddy, Atom innovation director, told The Northern Echo: “I do not think that we can let the General Election get in our way. It is around the same time that we will be raising our next chunk of money. Elections almost inevitably have an impact on the markets and add to an air of uncertainty, but we have great confidence in our plans and we will not be deterred from taking them forward."

Atom is using the £25m of support from a range of private investors, led by fund manager Neil Woodford, to build up its team of senior managers and office staff. The business will recruit 30 people in the next two months and expects to have a workforce of about 150 by next summer.

Mr Woodford sold his stake in HSBC earlier this year after saying that regulators hitting banks with heavy penalties had diluted the sector’s appeal to investors. Atom’s position as a fresh challenger to the big four lenders has tempted Mr Woodford as well as investors sich as veteran venture capitalist Jon Moulton and former Goldman Sachs asset manager Jim O’Neill.

Atom is led by former Metro Bank chairman Anthony Thomson and Mark Mullen, the former First Direct boss.

Mr Mullen said: “We have a very talented group of people working hard to bring Atom forward as the first real alternative to a market that is dominated by the UK’s High Street Banks."

Mr Twiddy accepted that the established lenders were introducing more digital products, such as apps and online banking, but he was confident that Atom would carve out a niche in the market.

He said: “It is good that people are getting more choice and we welcome competition from existing banks - but none of them will be new. None of them can start from a clean slate – with no legacy IT problems, or complex offers. We are genuinely new and we will do things differently.”