British Fintech adopts four days a week without cutting wages

At Atom Bank, employees will now work four days a week on one of the most flexible work policies the finance company has introduced since the pandemic revolutionized office standards.

A fintech do United kingdomThe digital bank, which has 430 employees, switched to the four-day-a-week work system on November 1, the digital bank said in a statement on Tuesday. Contractual working hours will be reduced by 3.5 hours, to 34 hours per week, without changing salary.

Mondays or Fridays will be the days off for most employees, except for those in operational and service roles whose days away from the office can vary to ensure levels of customer service.

In the statement, Atom Bank CEO Mark Mullen said the company recognizes that a four-day work week is not suitable for all businesses, but noted that the home office has proven work practices “that appear to be rapidly delivering years later.”

“We firmly believe that this will be beneficial to the well-being and happiness of our employees and that it will have the same positive impact on business productivity and customer experience.”

Atom Bank was the first bank of the application to launch in the UK in April 2016. The fintech offers savings accounts, mortgages and corporate loans and had 2.7 billion pounds ($3.6 billion) of total credit under management at the end of March, according to an annual report.

The bank released its first full quarter of operating profit for the three months to September, with corporate lending expanding 16% to £879m.

Other banks have also begun to abandon their traditional ways of doing business. Financial institutions such as HSBC and Lloyds Banking have reduced office space by allowing employees to work part of their time from home.