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Vernon Hill's bank turns profitable

Metro growing fast

Metro Bank Plc is starting to make money: The six-year-old U.K. lender, founded by former Commerce Bank chief Vernon W. Hill II of Moorestown and publicly-traded since its IPO last Spring,  eked out its first operating profit of 600,000 U.K. pounds in the three months ended Sept. 30 after boosting deposits 66% to 7.3 billion pounds ($9.5B) and loans 73% to 5.2 billion pounds ($6.8B) since last year.

Metro boss Craig Donaldson, one of the busy North-of-England managers Hill has put in charge of peeling customers from entrenched London retail and small-business lenders at the country's five dominant banks, expects Metro's first after-tax profits next quarter, he told the London Telegraph.

Founder Hill credits Metro's growing network of glass-walled fast-service branches: "This is the Commerce model, working unbelievably well in Britain," he told me. "These growth numbers, no one in the Western world has ever seen anything like this, including from me." He compared it to Commerce's entry into the New York City market in the early 2000s.

But won't the dominant U.K. banks meet Metro's tactics -- extending hours, simplifying fees -- as Commerce's U.S. competitors eventually did? "It'll never happen," Hill insisted. "Those are five big, ugly banks. They are still laying people off."

Metro is projecting a total of more than 100 "stores," 25 billion UK pounds in deposits, and an 18 percent return on invested capital by 2020, with continuing annual growth above 25%, organic (without acquisitions). Plus 2,500 staff and no share dividend, Hill added.