Speaking at the Future for Regional Banks conference in London, Anthony Thomson said launching a new bank today could take as little as nine months under the new regulatory framework and the FCA should expect a “boom” in banking applications over the next three to five years.

“The fact that a simple, small-scale bank could be authorised to launch within nine months, is phenomenal. Today, there are a number of opportunities for those who want to start up a new bank,” he said.

Thomson said the FCA would need to double its staff to cope with demand.

“We are in an exciting phase of the next generation of banking. We are going to see banks launching in regions that will have a bigger geographic footprint on the retail side and who will get to know their local community much more intimately,” he said.

“We’ve already had interest from business leaders in Newcastle, Manchester and London and today we’ve heard that the FCA, under its new regulatory framework, already has 21 firms who are in the pre-application phase – clear evidence that there is a long future for community banking.”

Thomson added that if he was going to launch a bank today, it would be very different to the Metro Bank concept created in 2007.

“Since then technology has changed so dramatically that, within a very short time span, everything that can be done in a branch can be done just as well – if not better – remotely. Within three years 60% of banking transactions will be done on mobile devices,” he predicted.