Selasa, 12 Juni 2012

Metro Bank raises £126m and plans 7 Home Counties stores

Metro Bank raises £126m and plans 7 Home Counties stores

By Joanna Robinson

PUBLISHED: 05:20 EST, 12 June 2012 | UPDATED: 10:47 EST, 12 June 2012

Metro Bank has raised £126million to fund further expansion as it is set to open seven new stores in the Home Counties and increase employee numbers from 500 to 700 by the end of the year.

The High Street bank, which first opened in London in 2010, plans to expand to hold 200 stores in the Greater London area by 2020.

It wants to build on its successful arrival on the scene and chase other new names looking to expand their banking, including retailing giants MS and Tesco.

Bank expansion: Metro Bank has announced its plans for seven more stores and 700 employees by the end of 2012

Bank expansion: Metro Bank has announced its plans for seven more stores and 700 employees by the end of 2012

The seven new Metro branches are planned for Brighton, Reading, Hemel Hempstead, Romford, Staines and Epsom, signalling the company’s first move into the outside of London and into the home counties.  

Metro Bank currently has 12 stores in the Greater London area, most recently opening a branch in Chiswick.

The bank says new investment has come from both new and existing personal and institutional investors.

Its announcement follows the revelation last week that MS would launch bank branches in 50 of its stores, using its MS Money brand, which is actually owned and run by HSBC.

Tesco Bank is also continuing to step up its push for customers, current accounts and mortgages are planned alongside its savings, insurance and credit card products, and it recently raised £200m in funding through a highly popular direct corporate bond.

Craig Donaldson, chief executive of Metro Bank, said: ‘We are pleased that our new and existing shareholders continue to support the revolution in British banking. The capital raise will further strengthen our growth plans and build on our firm foundation.

'The demand for this share placement reflects Metro Bank’s unprecedented success in the market. We have ambitious expansion plans, and customer reaction to the Metro Bank model means that we are confident in achieving our ambitions.'

The new banking push

The announcement of Metro's expansion comes just after news that Marks Spencer plans to open 50 banks over the next two years in its high street stores, offering bank accounts and mortgages on top of the existing financial products currently offered by MS Money.

Enlarge   MS: Plans to lunch 50 bank branches in stores

MS: Plans to lunch 50 bank branches in stores

Like Metro Bank, which is open 7 days a week and until 8pm on week nights, MS has pledged that its high street bank branches will match the existing opening hours of its stores. It already has more than 3million customers with most of these holding MS credit cards

Metro Bank has tried to take advantage of consumers' disillusionment with the bigger banking institutions, and MS will be hoping its trusted brand name and loyal customer following can help it to do the same.

Supermarket giant Tesco also plans to launch its own current account next year, and already has over 6 million customers with savings accounts, credit cards, insurance policies and loans.

Other rivals trying to take on the big name banks include Co-op Bank, which is trying to buy the 632 branches Lloyds is being forced to sell to hugely expand its presence and new banking group NBNK, which is making a fresh push to secure those branches too.

Metro Bank has grown in popularity not just because of its extended opening hours; it also boasts rapid account opening services with on the spot bank cards and cheque books and a customer-focused approach. 

The bank has 80,000 personal and business accounts, and business lending makes up over half of the bank’s lending activity.

Despite this healthy customer following it is a small player in the banking sector compared with the likes of Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC and RBS who have more than a million accounts each and to the ambitions of Tesco, MS, NBNK and Co-op
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More to the point....Is this bank lending any substantial amounts of money to anybody?

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I was served a cup of tea while I waited to talk to an advisor. Excellent service and hours

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It is well known that 90% of customers are VERY reluctant to change banks. Now we all have salary credits going in and numerous Direct Debits the chances for mistakes when we get new sort codes and account numbers are easy to contemplate. It costs a great deal of money to set up in the `High Street` - Rent, Rates, Shopfitting etc. etc. etc. --- I wait and see just how long Metrobank [and Virgin] will be able to carry on. If they had any sense they would join forces and create a new "on-line" bank with decent interest - say 5%+ - on their current accounts. If they do start to make inroads just wait for the Big 4 to start marketing `loss leaders` to force them out of business.

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Another seed for future tax payer bail outs...doing nothing different other than the same rubbish.

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I'm sorry, but Metro Bank just looks and sounds as dull as bellybutton fluff.

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I opened an account with them when i was over last month,what a differance from other banks and nationwide,they really seemed to care and i can use my debit card all over the world with no charges(nationwide used to but not anymore) now all my money is winging its way to Metro ,keep it up boys and girls your by far the best out there ,your like banking used to be.

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