Metro Bank is open 7 days a week to better serve its customers.
Metro bank set out when it opened its doors to cater directly to its customers with the best service they could find in a bank. They also set out to be aggressively successful for the first new bank to open in London in over 100 years. It appears they have achieved both so far with Metro Bank hitting their one year target for customer accounts in just five weeks after officially opening its first branch in Holborn, central London.
The government’s Banking Commission, chaired by former Bank of England economist John Vickers, has publicly announced that a decision may be forthcoming requiring that banks split up their investment and retail sectors. This requirement would be for all UK banks and not just those that received government bailout money. HSBC has issued a strong statement that if required to split the bank, they would relocate out of London.
Barclay’s experienced a customer service nightmare on Saturday. Customers were unable to access their accounts through cash machines to obtain funds for approximately seven hours. During this same time period customer’s credit cards did not work and they could not check their accounts online.
Barclays is the latest financial institution required to pay fines to US authorities for allowing financial transactions to take place between nations that were under US sanctions and the US banking system. Barclays has agreed to pay 190 million pounds, or $298 million. Lloyds Banking Group and Credit Suisse have also reached settlements this past year with the US authorities.
There is a new bank in town, named Metro Bank and it is promising to change the way people do banking business. The last time a high street bank launched was in 1872. The first branch of Metro Ban has opened in Holborn, central London.
Lord Levene, a City banker, Chairman of Lloyd’s insurance market, will Chair a new bank. The bank which has yet to be named is on a fast pace to join the FTSE 100 listing. The announcement reported the bank will be quickly floated at the end of the month on AIM and expects to move to a full listing by the end of the year.
Two British teenagers became criminal computer hackers and have been arrested for stealing bank account information from personal computers. The boys, Nick Webber, age 18, and Ryan Thomas, age 17 met when they were about 16 on a social networking site. The boys planned to join talents and scheme to steal bank account information and sell it to others.
