EXCLUSIVE: Metro Bank to cut hundreds of jobs as it pushes ahead with £80m cost-cutting plan

Metro Bank will announce hundreds of job cuts today as it presses ahead with its £80m cost-cutting plan.

The troubled lender is set to cut 300 jobs across its trading, IT and support divisions, the Mail can reveal.

It is the latest round of job cuts after Metro Bank secured a £925m rescue deal last year that saw Colombian billionaire Jaime Gilinski Bacal take control of the business.

The move comes just months after the bank announced it would cut 1,000 jobs (22 percent of its workforce) and eliminate seven-day trading at all its branches. The latest cuts come on top of those already mentioned.

Metro Bank increased the size of its cost-cutting plan in March, from £50m to £80m, after reporting a loss of almost £17m for 2023.

At the time, Chief Executive Daniel Frumkin said the bank was considering further job cuts as part of its recovery plan.

Metro Bank was co-founded by American billionaire Vernon Hill in 2010 and positioned itself as a rival to traditional banks.

It became the UK’s first high street bank in 150 years when it launched in the wake of the financial crisis. But Metro Bank, which has around 3 million customers, was plunged into crisis last autumn.

after being forced to seek an emergency cash injection.

This came after a series of missteps, including accounting errors, leadership changes and delays in regulatory approval of key capital relief plans.

The £925m package was made up of £175m from bondholders, £600m in debt refinancing and a £150m capital raising, of which Gilinski, 66, invested £102m, increasing his stake from 9 per cent to 53p.

In July, the lender sold its £2.5bn residential mortgage portfolio to rival NatWest to bolster its balance sheet after a deal with Barclays fell through in December last year.

The company said this summer it would return to profitability by the end of the year and revealed plans to shift its business model toward banking for small and medium-sized businesses.

The shares have risen 64.75 per cent so far in 2024 after partially recovering from last year’s crisis, but are 98 per cent below the all-time high of 4,018 pence hit in 2018.

Metro Bank confirmed yesterday that it was outsourcing its trading, IT and support functions, which will lead to job losses.

The bank will have around 3,150 employees after the latest round of cuts.

It is not expected to affect the company’s 76 High Street branches or store staff.