A new digital bank aimed at the African diaspora living in Britain is to start offering mortgages from Monday after getting the green light from regulators.

Afin Bank, which is majority owned by the Sierra Leone reinsurer WAICA, was fully authorised by the Bank of England to begin lending and taking deposits on Wednesday.

It is to start offering loans to homebuyers and buy-to-let investors, with a focus on millions of African, eastern European and Indian nationals living in the UK, who it said often found themselves unable to secure a mortgage. Fixed-rate savings accounts will also be available in the next few weeks.

• Afin Bank, offering mortgages for African diaspora, wins UK licence

Afin had previously been given a provisional “authorisation with restrictions” by the Bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority in October that limited it to £50,000 in deposits. It will target professionals such as accountants or IT contractors whose lack of UK credit history or short period of residency may have caused problems.

Polling by the bank of 500 Africans living in the UK suggested 87 per cent had been declined for a mortgage, including 30 per cent who said they were rejected due to their lack of UK credit history. In some cases the bank will use employment or credit history from an applicant’s country of origin alongside their earnings as an alternative way of underwriting them.

Jason Oakley, the bank’s chief executive, said: “The problem is that so many mainstream lenders have highly automated processes that can’t deal with the circumstances that the African diaspora and other foreign nationals face, such as their visa or credit status, so they end up being rejected.”

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Oakley, a veteran of British banking who has worked at Royal Bank of Scotland and Metro Bank, and launched another start-up bank, Recognise, in 2021, said: “Many of these borrowers have great jobs or their own businesses, with good earning potential.”

The bank also plans to target UK self-employed workers more widely, who can face similar issues with high street banks that may turn down those with incomes that are harder to prove. WAICA, which has offices in countries including Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya, as well as Dubai, has committed £62 million to set the bank up.

Afin is the latest entrant to the UK banking market over the past ten years that is attempting to steal customers away from the big high street banks, sometimes by targeting more niche areas of the market. As well as Monzo, Starling and Revolut, the less well-known companies include the likes of Oxbury Bank, which started offering savings and loans in 2021 and lends to British farmers.