Nationwide is understood to be in advanced talks on The Post Building, WC1, as the location for its new tech hub.
The building society revealed in September that it planned to spend £4.1bn over the next five years on technology for the business, including the new hub, and in February brought in CBRE to help with its office space search.
The new tech hub will occupy the remaining 88,511 sq ft of space across floors 1-4 at the under -construction building on a long lease.
Rents at The Post Building, due to complete this summer, are quoted in the late £80s.
The rest of the office space at the building is to be occupied by Rothesay Life, which is moving from the Cheesegrater, EC3 and will occupy the fifth and part of the sixth floor. McKinsey & Company will occupy floors six to 11.
The news follows Nationwide’s full year results, which saw it report a 19% fall in underlying profit before tax to £788m, due to its planned £227m technology investment spend during the year to April 4th 2019 and asset write-offs.
Nationwide expects to create between 750 and 1,000 new jobs through its multi-billion tech investment.
In addition it plans to create a £50m fintech venture fund, as well as launch Open Banking aggregation services.
Nationwide is one of the world’s largest building societies, with around 15 million customers and 18,000 employees.
Its head office is in Swindon, with administration centres in Northampton, Bournemouth and Dunfermlin, as well as a number of call centres across the UK.
A spokesperson for Nationwide said: “As part of the additional £1.3bn technology investment we announced in September 2018, we will open a new dedicated technology hub to drive innovation.
“We are still in the process of looking for premises, and we’re not in a position to comment further at this time.”
CBRE, JLL and Pilcher Hershman are the agents leasing the building, on behalf of Brockton Capital and Oxford Properties.
Oxford Properties declined to comment.
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