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Metro Bank soon to open its first two stores

Metro Bank has been granted a banking licence by the FSA and is set to become the first bank to open on the UK high street for more than 150 years.

It plans to build a network of more than 200 ‘stores’, as its branches will be known, in Greater London over the next 10 years. The first two stores will open in London in the second quarter of 2010 in Holborn and South Kensington. The next two stores will open at Fulham Broadway and Borehamwood in Hertfordshire. 

 

Metro Bank’s co-founders are Anthony Thomson and Vernon Hill.  Vernon Hill was the founder of Commerce Bancorp which grew from one office in America in 1973 to $50 billion in assets and 500 offices throughout the East Coast of America.  Hill is also the chairman of Fetch, Inc. which operates as Pet Plan America.

 

Anthony Thomson has 27 years experience in financial services and is currently the chairman of the Financial Services Forum (FS Forum), an independent member-based community for over 500 senior executives with an interest in financial services marketing. 

 

Anthony Thomson, Metro Bank chairman said: “The banking environment was fundamentally changed following the credit crunch, and we have seen seismic changes in the retail UK banking industry as a result.  With the FSA authorisation of Metro Bank we are entering a new era of banking, one where we go back to a more traditional banking model where customer service is key and there is deposit based lending.

 

Vernon Hill, Metro Bank vice chairman, said: “Metro Bank is an investment in the future of Britain.  At Metro Bank the customer is king and our goal is to reinvent British banking by building fans not customers.”

 

Stores will be open seven days a week from 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm Saturday, 11am to 4pm Sunday, every day of the year apart from Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

 

It will provide online banking and a 24/7 customer call centre located in London plus business banking serving the SME market. The local store managers will make lending decisions based on their relationships with local businesses. 

 

 

Metro Bank says account opening will be rapid with issuance of debit and credit cards within 15 minutes.

 

There will also be free coin counting at every store, for customers and non-customers alike, with the Metro Bank Magic Money Machine™

 

And it will be dog-friendly, friendly providing water bowls and dog biscuits.

 

The Metro Bank executives are:

  • Craig Donaldson, chief executive officer, formerly managing director of retail banking at Royal Bank of Scotland
  • Paul Marriott-Clarke, managing director, retail banking, formerly managing director, network south, retail at HBOS
  • Darren Schindler, managing director, commercial banking, formerly CEO, Oak Capital Group
  • Aisling Kane, chief operations officer, formerly director of UK operations at Anglo Irish Bank
  • Mike Brierley, chief financial officer, formerly director, business risk at Barclaycard.

 

Its non-executive directors are:

  • Howard Flight, founder of Guinness Flight Asset Management
  • Eugene Lockhart, former CEO of Midland Bank and MasterCard International and former president, global retail banking at Bank of America
  • Stuart Bernau, former retail director at Nationwide Building Society
  • Ben Gunn, former chief executive of Friends Provident Life & Pensions
  • Keith Carby, co-founder of J. Rothschild Assurance
  • Anthony Thomson, chairman, Financial Services Forum
  • Vernon Hill, founder of Commerce Bank.

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Date: 8th, March, 2010

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