According to Metro Bank’s latest results, this fall was due to the sale of its £584m unsecured personal loan portfolio earlier this year.
At the time, the lender said this is expected to lead to an £11m gain and give it lending capital to move further into specialist lending, becoming the “specialist lender of choice”.
In its results, Metro Bank said it was continuing to “strategically reposition its balance sheet towards higher-yielding corporate, commercial and SME lending and specialist mortgages”.
It noted that it has a “strong and high-quality credit approved commercial pipeline”.
This is equal to more than half of new lending, and year-to-date drawdowns in this area are already over 40% of total new lending.
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The bank said it was profitable on an underlying and statutory basis in the period and the improvement in underlying profit was due to a “structurally higher net interest margin (NIM), driven by continued asset rotation and deposit optimisation”.
Daniel Frumkin, Metro Bank’s CEO, said: “During the first quarter of 2025, we have continued to deliver the strategic repositioning of Metro Bank’s business, maintaining strong cost control while driving higher net interest margin by changing the mix of assets and remaining disciplined about deposits.
“We have seen further growth in our corporate and commercial lending, with Metro Bank’s relationship banking and breadth of services creating differentiation for us in the market.
“Looking ahead, we will continue to play an important role in supporting our customers as the UK focuses on delivering economic growth. We remain firmly on track to meet our guidance given at full year.”
