Metro Bank beats its own growth targets
METRO Bank, set up in July to rival the high street banks, has hit its annual targets in the first three months of business, chairman and co-founder Anthony Thomson said yesterday.
Metro, which has four branches in London, will now accelerate its expansion with eight additional outlets in the next year including banks in Kensington, Uxbridge and Croydon.
Thomson, who founded the bank with American entrepreneur Vernon Hill with £75m initial funding, said its targets were agreed with watchdogs but will not be made public yet.
“Nobody has any terms of reference for us,” Thomson told City A.M. yesterday. “We are the first new bank in more than 100 years and no-one knows what a good number of customers would be for us. But we agreed a number of annual targets with the FSA as part of our business plan, which we have now surpassed.”
The bank is gearing up to raise extra money from investors, including the billionaire Reuben brothers, to ramp up expansion. Thomson said Metro was on course to go public within three years of opening.
The bank remains focused on expanding within the M25, he added, with plans for 200 to 250 branches in Greater London in the next decade.