Allica Bank reported its strongest set of annual results to date for 2025, with profit, lending, deposits and customer numbers all rising as it increased investment in technology, product development and distribution.
The digital bank, which focuses on established SMEs, said underlying pre-tax profit rose 34% to £43.7 million, up from £32.5 million the previous year, despite what it described as £30 million of strategic investment in new products and go-to-market activity.
Gross profit after risk increased 32% to £145.3 million, while gross revenue was up 27% to £371.3 million. Customer deposits rose 29% to £5.7 billion and total lending climbed 23% to £3.7 billion.
The bank said the number of active Business Reward Account customers more than doubled during the year, rising 133% to more than 14,000 from more than 6,000 a year earlier. It added that customer penetration in its target market of established SMEs has now moved above 6%, which it said leaves it on course for its stated aim of reaching 10% by 2028.
Allica’s results mark its third consecutive year of profit and come as it continues to position itself as a specialist bank for established smaller businesses, a part of the market it argues remains underserved by larger incumbents.
LENDING GROWTH ACROSS CORE PRODUCTS
The bank said it advanced more than £1.3 billion of new lending in 2025, making it the second consecutive year in which it has originated more than £1 billion.
Commercial mortgages remained the largest part of the book, rising 35% to £2.4 billion from £1.7 billion. Asset finance increased 19% to £507 million, while growth finance rose 127% to £171 million. Bridging finance increased 85% to £121 million from £65.4 million.
During the year, Allica also launched what it described as a market-first bridge-to-term product, aimed at linking its bridging proposition more closely with its wider commercial property lending activity.
TECHNOLOGY AND AI PUSH
A large part of Allica’s investment in 2025 was directed towards its in-house technology platform and wider use of AI tools. The bank said it has accelerated the development of proprietary systems designed to support lending decisions, relationship management and operational efficiency.
According to the business, its engineering teams delivered more than 3,700 releases during the year while maintaining uptime of more than 99.5%. It also said regular use of AI tools across the organisation rose from around 50% to more than 80% over the course of 2025.
Allica said it is now developing AI agents and tools across its technology stack, including work on a more automated approach to complex SME lending using its own software and data.
Richard Davies, chief executive of Allica, said: “2025 was our strongest year yet. In a year when we’ve been investing deeply in tech and proposition enhancements, we’ve delivered a 34% increase in underlying pre-tax profit – and the number of established SMEs choosing to make Allica their primary bank has more than doubled, showing the demand for our full-service established SME model.
“But the more significant story is what’s happening beneath the numbers. Because we’ve been building Allica from the ground up on powerful, proprietary technology – with modern clean data architecture and a unified software stack – we’re entering this new era of agentic AI with a structural advantage that legacy banks and others relying on third-party systems simply cannot close.
“Our engineering teams are now developing and deploying AI agents and tools across the full technology stack, and we’re developing what we believe will be a global first for complex SME lending using AI agents built on our own proprietary data.
“Allica is building the category defining digital bank for established SMEs – a segment who make up a third of the economy but are drastically underserved. With our tech advantage now being amplified by the power of AI, the opportunity for us to transform the established SME banking market in in the UK and overseas is bigger than ever.”
EXPANSION PLANS
The bank’s growth plans were also supported by its $155 million Series D funding round, completed in February 2026. Allica said the capital will support further growth in the UK, continued investment in AI and the first phase of an international expansion strategy.
Alongside this, the lender expanded its relationship manager network to 60 people, with new and existing locations including Bristol, Cambridgeshire and Scotland. It also entered the embedded finance market through the acquisition of Kriya, which it said is intended to help it deliver £1 billion of additional SME working capital finance by the end of 2028.
The bank said customer growth in 2026, particularly for its Business Reward Account, will also be backed by a new brand campaign due to launch in mid-April, including television advertising.
