While technology and automation continue to make banking faster and more efficient, close working relationships with people who understand the business, its ambitions, and its challenges can make all the difference when it matters most.
Metro Bank provides a full range of services that customers expect from a bank – from personal and business current accounts and savings to mortgages and business credit cards. But while many other high street branches are scaling down, Metro Bank is committed to building its portfolio of stores, which provide face-to-face Relationship Banking from a position at the heart of the community.
As the Relationship Banking specialists, Metro Bank has a local business manager in every store, and a local director in each of its larger stores, supporting the community as a whole and the businesses that operate within it.
The face-to-face approach is supplemented by access to online banking, the Metro Bank App, UK-based contact centres and services at Post Offices for those not close to a store. Metro Bank currently has a growing network of 78 stores nationwide, with stores operating in Northampton and Milton Keynes.
Andrew Sharman, Local Business Manager in Abington Street in Northampton, said: “Metro Bank has made a commitment to doing things differently, and to returning to a time when banking was a lot more ‘human’. Relationship Banking is vital for businesses, particularly small businesses that need the support and tools to continue to grow and flourish.
“Our branches, stores as we prefer to call them, are a point of contact that give customers the opportunity to build a relationship with the people who are looking after their banking needs on a day-to-day basis. We have contact centres, online banking and the app, naturally, but sometimes meeting with someone face to face, someone you’ve had a chance to get to know and trust, makes all the difference.”
For business clients, Metro Bank offers:
- Current accounts, deposit options and cash management solutions
- Working capital solutions including invoice financing and asset-based lending
- Commercial lending options with the opportunity to discuss requirements with the team
- Structured finance, wholesale finance and fund finance for larger businesses, with options to support complex needs that traditional finance can’t meet
- Commercial mortgages
- Asset finance
- Commercial online banking with options to suit all sizes of business
Andrew and his colleague, Local Director Daniel West, joined Metro Bank earlier this year and are enthusiastic about the progress they have made in the local market since taking up their new roles.
Daniel said: “We’re a bank that is proud to be rooted in the communities we serve, giving them the honesty, transparency and consistency they need from their bank.
“The best way to build meaningful customer relationships is to be based close to them, be available for them when they need us, and with a good knowledge of the local business community and how it works. That, combined with access to specialised commercial teams that are part of a national network and with a comprehensive range of tailored products and services, is how Metro Bank will continue to build on its place in the community.”
Find out more about Metro Bank on their website.
