Customers in the UK are ditching high street banks in favour of opening accounts with Metro Bank. The first start-up bank to open in Britain in a century is opening hundreds of accounts a day with people desperately looking for a trustworthy bank that cares about customer service. The London based bank has pledged to provide customers with good customer service and low rates. The bank is set to open a nationwide online account that will not charge customers for taking out cash making it one of the only banks in the UK that offers this.

The Croyden store, the latest to be opened, attracted 500 new accounts in its first weekend. Bank Chairman Anthony Thomson has said “‘It’s incredible; we always said there was a real opportunity for a bank offering a real customer experience. People said it wasn’t possible, that all customers cared about was rates, but we’ve been proved right.’

When the Bank launched it was criticised by some in the banking industry as offering below par rates and focusing too heavily on customer service. However Thomson says their rates are fair, transparent and without catches, something that is rare with the high street banks. Metro seems to be capitalising on its customer service based approach especially with other high street banks taking heavy criticism over the service they provide.  Last year alone 1.1 million people complained to their bank with 100,000 of those lodging a complaint with the financial ombudsman. Many of these complaints were regarding PPI claims and extortionate bank charges.

So a bank that focuses on good customer service may be just what the British public need and will hopefully improve the service offered by the large high street banks. Good customer service is something we should demand as consumers and if you have received unfair bank charges or poor customer service why not consider changing to Metro bank.

The financial Ombudsman (FOS) has recived criticism from Tenet a support services provider, after action was taken to increase the Financial Ombudsman Service limit from £100,000 to £150,000. They claim that this will impact premiums and excesses due to the cost of compensation being paid. They also highlighted inconsistencies in rulings made by FOS and complained that they are the only body in the UK whose decision is final and is unable to be appealed. Tenet even brought into question whether FOS adjudicators were qualified to make these decisions remarking that the current Ombudsman Chief used to be a “head librarian”.

In case you hadn’t guessed Tenet works with bank advisors and mortgage brokers and these increases are likely to affect their business as well as that of the banks. It is for this reason then that Tenet have hit out at FOS using the threat of increased premiums and excesses even though only recently Jack Straw commented that insurance companies are driving up premiums and excesses themselves by selling on customers details to whiplash claim companies increasing the number of claims made each year.

Tenets comments are suprising as FOS say that only 0.2 % of its resolved claims are in excess of £100,000 an extremely low percentage. Also FOS are not the only organisation that can make a decision that is final many organisations in the uk do including the Pensions Ombudsman. The comment by Tenet about the Fnancial Obudsmans chief Natalie Ceeney was obviously meant to undermine her authority and FOS’ too but the claims were also incorrect as Ceeney was previously in fact the Chief Executive of the National Archives.