Industry TV Recap: Short and Tender

For a dodgy neobank looking to go straight, Tender has a funny way of showing it. Not to cast too many aspersions on Austrian finance, but Industry would have us believe that merging a London-based fintech with a 300-year-old Viennese bank is a good way to show Tender’s commitment to fitness and propriety. Austria may be known for many things, but a clean-as-a-whistle banking sector is not among them. If you think this is unfair, look up Meinl Bank and rejoice in the majesty of perhaps one of the most corrupt organizations to ever breathe corporate air. So an Austrian banking license isn’t exactly the financial equivalent of a papal indulgence.

As Episode 3 of Industry gets underway, Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington), who a week earlier we saw emerging with a hacking cough from his stable block after bailing out of a suicide attempt, is now installed in the corner office of Tender. Wearing a tech- bro uniform of blue jeans and a long-sleeve polo shirt, Sir Henry has made the unlikely transition from failed politician and businessman to chief executive officer of a major financial company, seemingly without having to do anything as menial as, say, passing a banking exam.