Metro Bank lures senior City talent to its start-up team
METRO Bank, the start-up high street lender backed by US billionaire Vernon Hill, has poached Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS’s) former managing director of retail banking to head up its fledgling management team.
Craig Donaldson joins from RBS as Metro’s chief executive, and will be joined by a number of fellow senior City bankers.
Paul Marriott-Clarke and Darren Schindler move over from HBOS as head of retail banking and head of corporate lending respectively. Aisling Kane joins from Anglo Irish as chief operating officer, while Metro has also lured Mike Brierley and Linda Hargreaves from Capital One in the US as its new chief financial officer and head of compliance.
Remuneration for the new recruits will be linked to their performance on customer satisfaction polls.
Metro will focus on customer service, opening seven days a week and placing a special emphasis on personal services. It plans to allow customers to bring their dogs into branches, where pets will be offered bowls of water and free chewy treats.
Metro hopes to open its first UK branches within a couple of months, pending final regulatory approval for its banking licence.