Located in Paradise Street, within the Liverpool One estate, the ‘dog-friendly’ bank is set to create 25 jobs and was due to open this week. Tony McDonough reports
Metro Bank has postponed the launch of its Liverpool branch which was due to open this Friday, December 6.
Located in Paradise Street, within the Liverpool One estate, the ‘dog-friendly’ bank is set to create 25 jobs for local people and be open 362 days a year, staying open well into the evening.
It will be the company’s 71st branch and its first in the North of England and was due to launch with a day-long celebration this week. However, in a short statement on Wednesday afternoon, a spokesperson for Metro Bank told LBN the opening would now be delayed.
It said: “We’re really excited to be coming to the north of England and want to make a great first impression for the people of Liverpool when we open the doors to our new store. Unfortunately we’ve hit a snag at the last moment as we’ve been getting set to open this weekend, and so we’ve had to postpone our Liverpool store opening.
“We can’t wait to show the residents and local businesses of Liverpool what great service and convenience looks like very soon. We will confirm a new opening date as soon as we can.”
No further details about the reason for the delay, or when the branch is expected to open, were given.
Metro Bank, which provides banking services to Everton FC, has suffered a torrid few months. It was founded in 2010 by Vernon Hill but he resigned as chairman in October, leaving his successor to handle a regulatory investigation into an accounting error.
Shortly after, its third quarter results for the three months to September 30 revealed a loss of £6.7m compared with £900,000 in the second quarter, due to its “transformation and remediation programmes”.
Earlier this week it suffered a further blow when one of its long-standing investors sold £11.6m worth of shares in the company. Hedge fund tycoon Steven Cohen has now sold 5.9m of the bank’s shares since November 22.
The new Liverpool outlet will offer business, personal and private banking services from early in the morning until late at night, seven-days-a-week. Customers will be able to visit the store, with no appointment needed, and open a personal or business account on-the-spot, leaving with their debit card in hand, along with internet and mobile banking set-up.
It will also offer more than 1,500 Safe Deposit Boxes for customers to store their valuables with access seven days a week.