Tandem appoints Walters as Brookes retires from second charge role. Published on 6 May 2026 Tandem Bank has appointed Laura Walters as head of sales and distribution following the planned early retirement of Nigel Brookes. Brookes, who was director of second charge sales and distribution, leaves after more than a decade with the Blackpool-based challenger bank. During that period, Tandem said he played a central role in building its position in the specialist second charge mortgage market. Walters (pictured) has worked with Brookes and Steve Beard, managing director of mortgages, during her 13 years with the bank. Tandem said her experience in the second charge market, broker relationships and contribution to the business made her the natural successor. She will continue to work closely with Beard as Tandem looks to grow its second charge business. The bank said one of the main developments during Brookes' time with the business was the launch last year of Tandem Connect, its broker platform. Tandem said the platform automated key stages of the loan process and reduced case processing times by 4.5 working days. The lender said the leadership change comes as the second charge market continues to grow, with new agreements rising by more than 27% year-on-year through 2025 and 2026. Beard said: "On behalf of everyone at Tandem, I'd like to thank Nigel for his huge contribution over the past decade. He has played a central role in building its second charge proposition into what it is today and in shaping its relationships across the broker community. "A planned early retirement is thoroughly well deserved and we wish him all the very best for what comes next." "I'm delighted to see Laura step into this role. She brings strong leadership, deep expertise and a clear understanding of both its strategy and its partners. "The second charge market is growing and we're growing with it - with a strong team in place, a clear plan and the technology to back it up." Walters said: "I'm excited to step into this role at such a pivotal moment for Tandem and the second charge market. Mortgage Soup has built strong foundations through great tech, strong relationships and real delivery. "My focus now is on accelerating that. For brokers, that means faster decisions, smoother journeys and a partner that's easy to do business with. The opportunity here is massive and we're well placed to make the most of it."

OpenEvidence enters prescription, prior auth arena. Through a new partnership with Tandem, the clinical decision support platform will include automation capabilities to ease the prescription and prior authorization processes. Published: 03 Apr 2026 OpenEvidence has partnered with Tandem to add prescription generation and prior authorization submission capabilities to its clinical decision support tool. OpenEvidence provides a large language model-based search engine for clinicians. Clinicians can ask the platform medical questions and receive answers based on evidence gathered and synthesized from various sources, including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA Network and Mayo Clinic Platform. According to the company, its platform supports more than 1 million clinical consultations per day in the United States. Tandem is an AI-powered tool that automates the prescription process, including prior authorization, appeals and routing prescriptions to the patient's preferred pharmacy. The tool, which is embedded within EHR workflows, also enrolls patients in savings and support programs as needed. The partnership's goals are to reduce delays between diagnosis and treatment, expand patient access to medications and reduce administrative burdens for clinicians. "Clinicians shouldn't have to choose between delivering care and navigating administrative complexity," said Ania Bilski, M.D., vice president of clinical AI at OpenEvidence, in the press release. "By partnering with Tandem, we're removing friction from both clinical and operational workflows - so clinicians can focus on getting patients the right treatments, faster." The partnership follows OpenEvidence's initial push into the revenue cycle management space with the launch of its Coding Intelligence feature late last month. The AI-driven feature automatically provides ICD-10 diagnoses and evaluation and management (E/M) level recommendations within clinical notes. The company has also made other recent moves to diversify its platform. In February, it launched an audio telehealth feature that allows clinicians to call patients using a customizable caller ID name and number. The feature also enables them to securely send and receive text messages and faxes within the OpenEvidence app. These launches come on the heels of a closed series D fundraising round in January that added $250 million to OpenEvidence's coffers. The round, led by Thrive Capital and DST Global, brought the company's total funding to nearly $700 million and sent its valuation soaring to $12 billion. Anuja Vaidya has covered the healthcare industry since 2012. She currently covers the virtual healthcare landscape, including telehealth, remote patient monitoring and digital therapeutics.

Tandem Bank has appointed Stephen Jones as its new chair as the digital bank pursues future growth. Jones, currently executive chair of investment banking at Panmure Liberum, brings decades of UK banking leadership experience, including senior roles at Santander and Barclays, and served as inaugural chief executive of UK Finance. Jones replaces Paul Pester, who held the position for three years during which Tandem achieved and maintained profitability. Pester also appointed current chief executive Neil Chandler in 2025. Chandler thanked Pester for his contributions and said Tandem is positioned to accelerate growth in 2026 with its experienced board and leadership team.