Strategy
Coutts to Open Another Regional Office, Targets New Wealth Centres
Coutts, the UK private bank, is opening another regional office, this time in the central England town of Milton Keynes and plans to target ...
Coutts, the UK private bank, is opening another regional office, this time in the central England town of Milton Keynes and plans to target growth among future millionaires living along the M1 (the UK’s major motorway) corridor.
“We think there will be considerable demand from this region,” John Williams, head of private banking for Coutts UK, told WealthBriefing. “Coutts has also plans to open another two new regional offices in the UK by the end of 2007.”
Mr Williams would not disclose the location of these offices, but said the regional expansion in the UK, which was accelerated during the last two years, has been a resounding success.
Britain’s best known private banking brand has a total of 16 regional offices throughout the UK. Mr Williams says the bank controls around 15 per cent of the regional high net worth market, with this growing strongly during the last two years.
“We want to grow this to 20 per cent and the opening of the office in Milton Keynes is part of this strategy.”
The bank is also on an aggressive hiring phase for its regional expansion where in some cases staff numbers will be increased by 60 per cent.
For the new Milton Keynes office the bank will initially recruit six private banking staff to the office, but has desk space for at least another 20 available, said Coutts.
The former head of Coutts’ regional strategy said a large part of the success of the bank’s regional expansion has been the bank’s proven ability to work directly with clients in the regions, rather than to ship expertise in from London as some other private banks appear to be doing.
The bank commissioned research by Experian, the credit agency, which suggests that the M1 corridor is a haven for the millionaires of the future. Currently over 13,500 people in this region have the potential to become millionaires, said the research.
Over 54 per cent of these reside in the Hemel Hempstead, HP postcode district, followed by 24.5 per cent in St Albans, 13 per cent in Northamptonshire.