Metro Bank admits savers were pulling cash before last month’s emergency fundraising

Metro Bank admitted savers were withdrawing money from their accounts amid fears about their future ahead of an emergency fundraiser last month.

In October, the troubled lender secured a £925m lifeline which included the sale of £150m of new shares as well as £175m of new debt, plus a £600m refinancing of existing loans.

Metro said yesterday it saw “an increase in deposit outflow rates” ahead of the deal, as customers rushed to withdraw their cash.

He said withdrawals have now “returned to more normal ranges.”

The company also revealed that deposits for the three months to September amounted to £15.6 billion, down 5 per cent year-on-year, while the size of its loan portfolio fell 2 per cent to £12 .5 billion pounds.

Metro shares rose 1.1 per cent, or 0.45p, to 43p.

At the time of the surge in withdrawals, Metro had posted profits for three consecutive quarters, but its capital levels (the amount of easily accessible cash held by the bank) were just above legal requirements and posed a threat to its ability credit. .

In September, the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulatory Authority denied it permission to assess mortgage risks using its internal models, which big banks can use to improve profitability.

Metro has also struggled to cut costs thanks to its network of 76 branches across the UK.

The October bailout handed effective control to its largest shareholder, Colombian billionaire Jaime Gilinski Bacal, who provided the bank with a £102m cash injection and saw his stake soar from just over 9 per cent to 53 per cent. hundred.

At the time, the bank promised to push ahead with plans to open more bank branches despite agreeing to cut costs by £30m a year as a condition of the funding deal.