Chris Pitt had an unusual start to his banking career. In the middle of a history degree at Loughborough University in the early 1980s, the working-class lad from east London’s Upton Park found himself with a holiday job usually earmarked for trustworthy retirees: handling cheques worth millions of pounds.
“When I couldn’t get any jobs, my grandma and one of my great- uncles got me job as a messenger. You used to walk between banks in the City with paper cheques,” says the chief of internet bank First Direct.
