Throughout the financial year, it achieved £80m in annualised cost savings, mainly through cutting its workforce by over 30%, from roughly 4,460 to 2,970 employees
Metro Bank has bounced back into the black after a major cost-cutting drive that saw staff numbers slashed and part of its mortgage book sold off.
The bank, which landed a multimillion-pound lifeline in 2023, hailed the period as a “pivotal” year. Throughout the financial year, it achieved £80m in annualised cost savings, mainly through cutting its workforce by over 30%, from roughly 4,460 to 2,970 employees.
Initially, Metro Bank had announced plans to reduce its workforce by about a fifth but went on to make further cuts after increasing its cost-saving goals. The bank reported an underlying pre-tax profit of £12.8m for the six months ending December, marking a turnaround from a £26.8m loss the previous year.
This underlying figure excludes what the bank considers one-off costs related to asset sales and refinancing. On a statutory basis, however, it recorded a pre-tax loss of £212m for 2024. In 2023, Metro Bank secured a funding package worth £925m, ensuring its continued presence on British high streets.
Colombian billionaire Jaime Gilinski Bacal became the majority shareholder in the group following his investment through Spaldy Investments.
Last year, the bank offloaded a chunk of its residential mortgages, valued at £2.5bn, to NatWest, as part of a strategy shift towards specialist mortgages and business lending. On Wednesday, Metro Bank announced it had agreed to sell a £584m portfolio of personal loans to an undisclosed buyer.
Metro Bank said there had been some deterioration in lending balances due to borrowers being impacted by “the macroeconomic environment including lower house prices, increased cost of living and higher interest rates”.
The bank witnessed an uptick in loans in arrears, which climbed to 5.6% by the close of 2024, a significant rise from 2.8% in 2023. Daniel Frumkin, the CEO of Metro Bank, said: “It has been a transformational year for Metro Bank as we made substantial progress against our strategy, ending the period ahead of guidance, profitable, and with strong momentum going forward.
“We have successfully continued our pivot towards higher margin business in the form of corporate, commercial and SME lending and specialist mortgages, while also taking significant steps to reduce our costs and optimising our funding model.”