Deposits push higher at Metro Bank

Metro Bank saw deposits edge up in the first quarter, the high street lender confirmed on Tuesday.

Total deposits rose 4% in the three months to March end, to £16.2bn, boosted by a successful deposit campaign launched in the previous quarter.

The challenger bank also added around 50,000 personal and business accounts during the period.

Total lending, however, fell 9% year-on-year to £11.8bn, as Metro repositioned its balance sheet towards higher-yielding specialist mortgages and commercial lending.

Last October the UK bank struck at £925m refinancing package with Colombian billionaire Jaime Gilinski Bacal.

Shortly afterwards it announced a major restricting, including cutting headcount by 20%, although it insisted it remained committed to the branch model.

Gilinski’s investment vehicle now owns around 53% of Metro.

Daniel Frumkin, chief executive, said: "Following the successful deposit campaign launched in the fourth quarter, we have implemented our plans to reduce costs of deposits and optimise our elevated liquidity position. This led to a modest reduction of higher cost deposits in March.

"Lending activity levels are in line with expectations.

"Based on performance in the first quarter, we remain confident that financial results will continue to improve throughout 2024 as we optimise funding, deliver on cost savings, continue our asset rotation and benefit from lower-yielding fixed rate treasury and mortgage maturities."

As at 1000 BST, shares in Metro were down 3% at 33.8p.