The group has not applied for a banking licence yet but has made a number of appointments to its board.
Stephen Knight, previously executive chairman at GMAC-RFC and Checkmate, is chief executive officer at Portillion.
Gerald Gregory, previously a board director of Britannia Building Society is non-executive chairman.
Ronnie Baird, previously a director of the FSA, becomes a senior non-executive director and chairman of the audit committee. David Hill, previously chief financial officer and chief executive officer at Stroud & Swindon Building Society, has been appointed as chief financial officer.
David Kindred, head of decision sciences at Lloyds Banking Group has become chief risk officer.
Stephen Knight, chief executive officer at Portillion, said he was now deciding over the appropriate time to prepare a launch and over the form it should take.
He added: “Once that decision has been made, we will apply for the appropriate licence and will be in the FSA’s hands. We are not going to do self-cert and sub-prime mortgages so we will be in prime mortgage space. If we go down the banking space, it will be based on simple savings model.”
“We are recruiting more people but are not ready to make further announcements yet. We have the board procedures and governance in place so the structures are there but we have not decided how best to move forward. I hope it will improve choice and benefits for customers” he said.
