A good meeting this week with some top people from Metro – triggered by the appointment of the energetic Chris Brindley to run the quickly growing branch network.
Metro have positioned themselves as innovative for customer service and responsive in the personal banking sector. They have however been head-hunting some quality business and commercial bankers and are approaching the ‘commercial’ sector with the same philosophy- namely that they can do a good basic job, are open 24/7, have new systems that are customer driven and have good relationship managers backed up by short and responsive links to underwriters.
They are not the ‘new kids on the block’ wanting to take on all the deals that the high street banks don’t want to do – they want to maintain the quality of their customer base and appear to have the systems to do that.
I like the fact that they provide a basic, bog standard, fixed rate, loan product. Some would say that this shows a lack of capability on treasury interest rate management products but the reality is that most businesses just want a basic fixed rate loan – without having to enter into a complex separate ‘SWAP’ contract where they are apprehensive about the complexity translating into the bank getting the better end of the deal.
Still to be properly tested in my own experience – my time with Metro in their Head Office this week has however boosted their credibility in my eyes.