Allica Bank goes ‘turbo’ on AI as profit and loan book swells
Small business lender Allica Bank has revealed a major bump to its bottom line after the bank’s loan book ballooned over the last year.
The neobank – which became one of the UK’s latest fintech unicorns this year – recorded a 23 per cent rise in pre-tax profit at £36.9m, compared to £29.9 million in 2024.
It came amid a flurry in new lending with around £1.3bn in fresh originations, giving the firm’s loan book an over 23 per cent uplift from its just north of £3bn in 2024.
Commercial mortgages made up the lionshare of the portfolio at £2.4bn taking up nearly two-thirds of the book. Meanwhile, asset finance sat at around 13.6 per cent at £507m.
Richard Davies, chief executive of Allica, told City AM the bank was “well on track” to clinching its target of a 10 per cent market share by 2028.
Allica currently serves over 30,000 established small and medium-sized businesses across the UK, which represents near five per cent of its total target market.
Allica bullish on AI
Davies said the bank’s use of AI was going to “turbo charge” its market share mission. Allica’s AI tool adoption saw a rapid increase among its engineering team, growing from “limited usage” at the start of 2025 to 79 per cent daily usage by January 2026.
“We already see like really strong evidence this is going to be the most transformative technology since the internet for banking,” he added.
The bank is also targeting expansion and investment into Europe as it eyes bringing its small business offering to the region.
“We’re definitely deep into sort of how we will execute that, but sort of not quite in a place to yet publicly talk about that,” Davies said.
Comparing the different regulatory environments in the UK and Europe, Davies said: “There is definitely differences. It’s been very interesting getting into it and seeing how different regulators act.”
In the UK, the banking chief – who previously served as group chief operating officer at Revolut – said there was still “more needed” to bolster the fintech sector.
He pointed to the Growth Guarantee Scheme (GGS) – a government-backed initiative launched on 1 July 2024 to support finance access for smaller UK businesses, which Allica has lobbied for expansion of.
Last year, the bank said it had identified a £65bn gap in productive credit for UK small businesses and called for the doubling of the GGS, which currently offers 70 per cent guarantees to lenders on facilities up to £2m.
Davies described the move as “no brainer lever” to pull.