A boss at a fast-growing bank has confirmed the business is looking to open branches in Derby and Nottingham.
Metro Bank has been launching new branches in the West Midlands, the most recent of which was in Birmingham’s High Street last week.
In terms of the East Midlands, the company has recently secured planning permission for a new branch - or “store” as Metro likes to call them - in Leicester. No date has been set for that opening, but when it does it will create up to 25 jobs.
But Metro has now said it also has plans to open further East Midlands sites in Derby and Nottingham.
At the recent opening of the Birmingham High Street branch, Ian Walters, managing director of retail and business banking at Metro Bank, said that both cities were very much in its sights.
He said: “We have plans for the East Midlands which we will probably do next year. We try to do it in a coherent way that makes sense.
“We are locked and loaded for Leicester, Nottingham we are very close (to signing on a property) and we want to be in Derby but we’re not quite sure where.
“What we look at is the SME data. Our target market is not your household names and multi-national corporates, it’s the owner-managed business.
“Leicester in particular is a really strong market for SMEs. We think the demographics of Leicester will work really well with our safety deposit box proposition.
“And just the general growth in the population. Because we have zero market share in Leicester, there is loads of opportunity for us to go at.”
Metro’s strategy of opening new branches is at odds with the industry pattern of traditional high street banks vanishing from villages, towns and cities in a bid to get customers to bank online.
Metro, which is nine years old, currently has 68 sites, the vast majority of which are located across London and the South East.
