A swathe of digital banks targeting specific demographics have sprung up in recent years. In the US, examples include Greenwood, focused on serving black Americans; Cheese Financial, aimed at the Asian community and Majority, serving immigrant groups. Daylight, an online banking provider focused on the LGBTQ community, shut down in 2023.Across Europe, Triodos Bank is a Netherlands-based bank that says it will only lend money to organisations that are committed to making a positive social change while in the UK Oxbury has a singular focus on British farmers.Next cab off rankThe next cab off the rank could well be soon-to-launch Ethos, a digital bank which is primarily, but not universally, targeting the four million UK Muslim community with Shariah-compliant banking services.Earlier this week, a press release was issued saying that Ethos was working with Thought Machine, which develops cloud-based banking software for Lloyds and JP Morgan, to launch a bank, kicking off with savings accounts and mortgages.The remit of Ethos Venture, Ethos’s parent company, is to launch “inclusive” financial services products, according to its co-founder and CEO Hasan Raza, a former investment banker with HSBC and BNP Paribas.Ethos Ventures, founded in 2020, says it has “built a team of over 20 world-class experts spanning retail and wholesale banking, investment banking and private equity”. Raza says Ethos Ventures has previously tried and failed to buy existing banks, so has now turned to launching its own.Financing behind the digital bank comes courtesy of investors from the UK, the Gulf and South East Asia, says Raza, though he does not share specific funding numbers.Awaiting UK banking licence approvalEthos applied for a full FCA and PFA UK banking licence in October last year and says its application is at a “mature stage”. Its decision to kick off with savings and mortgages marks a left-of-field manoeuvre, given the received wisdom is to start with current accounts.Raza says: “Most startup banks, if you look at Monzo and Starling, they began with transactional banking. “And the hard bit, creating a lending book which is where banks make long-term income, they didn’t do until much later down the line.“We began with let’s do the hard bit first

It can be challenging to pick up and move to a new country, made even more challenging if you are not used to the style of banking in that particular country.The increase of immigrants to the United States — some 50 million total foreign-born people live in the US now, according to immigration think tank Center for Immigration Studies — present an opportunity for startups to tailor financial services to this population. Companies like Comun, Maza, Alza and Welcome Technologies, for example, help Latino immigrants open bank accounts. Magnus Larsson, himself an immigrant from Sweden, ran into similar problems and created Miami-based Majority in 2019 to address them. For a $5.99 per month membership fee, migrants can open a bank account and get a debit card, community discounts, fee-free international money transfers and discounted international calling. There is also a peer-to-peer pay feature.Accounts don’t require a Social Security number or U.S. documentation, just an international government-issued ID and proof of U.S. residence