LHV Bank Names Starling and NatWest Veteran Damian Thompson as Chief Executive #

LHV Bank Limited, the UK arm of Estonia’s AS LHV Group, has named Damian Thompson as its new chief executive officer and executive director. His appointment is subject to regulatory approval, and he is set to join the bank on 4 January 2027. Thompson has more than 35 years of UK banking experience across retail and institutional finance, structured credit, and digital lending.

Thompson spent nearly two decades in senior positions at NatWest Markets, leading teams focused on funding, risk management, and lending to UK financial institutions. He joined Starling Bank’s executive team in 2021, overseeing lending book growth as the challenger bank expanded into one of Britain’s largest digital lenders. During his tenure, Starling’s loan portfolio grew to more than £5 billion. In 2023, Thompson also became chief executive of Fleet Mortgages, Starling’s specialist buy-to-let subsidiary.

LHV Bank received a UK banking licence in 2023 and has since built a business covering retail deposits, banking services for international fintech clients, and SME and commercial property lending. Earlier this year, the bank surpassed £1 billion in total commercial loan output, three years after launching its SME lending operation, with broker demand coming from commercial real estate, trading business mortgages, and specialist buy-to-let products.

In a statement accompanying the announcement, Thompson said the bank had “strong foundations for its next phase of growth,” pointing to its technology stack, the financial backing of a profitably growing group, and a “clear ambition to expand its lending” as factors that made the opportunity compelling.

LHV Bank’s board said Thompson’s combination of large-bank discipline from his NatWest years and growth-stage experience at Starling made him well suited for the role. His appointment follows a period of rapid balance-sheet expansion.

Source: GlobeNewswire