IF.COM, the new internet bank led by Jim Spowart, is hatchingplans to capture a slice of the market in bank services for smalland medium sized businesses.
Spowart, who moved from his position at the helm of Standard LifeBank last year to take up a challenge from the Halifax to createEurope's biggest internet bank from scratch, will focus first onpersonal banking when IF.com launches on July 4.
However, Spowart said the next stage of his strategy would be totarget SMEs, probably from early next year.
"At Standard Life Bank we took a big slice of the SME savingsmarket, there's no reason we can't do it at IF.com," he said.
Bank services and charges to the SME sector came under fiercecriticism in the recent stinging review of the bank sector carriedout by Don Cruickshank.
Spowart, who has engaged an army of consultants to design state-of-the-art online and telephone call centre banking facilities, saidhe was delighted that the infrastructure developed for IF.com'slaunch will also be employed in the new private bank being createdfor St James Place Capital. Last week Halifax paid GBP 750m to takea 60% stake in the life and pensions group to boost its presence inthe high net worth end of the savings market.
The creation of a separate private bank under the St James PlaceCapital brand spelled good news for Spowart as it will use IF.com'stechnology platform and also showcase its new range of financialproducts which are still under wraps.
"St James Place Capital is building a GBP 5bn-GBP 6bn bank -that's just 20% to 25% of our overall target," Spowart said.
He added that If.com's recruitment plans are progressing well.The overall numbers of staff in Edinburgh could hit 1,500, includingextra people to run the administratiuon and processes for the new StJames Place Capital private bank.
"We've made 990 job offers in just the last six to seven days andwe're getting a decline rate of just 6%," he said. "We're attracting300 to 400 people a week for interviews."
The huge workload involved in setting up IF.com has been a majorboost to Vision, the lead management and IT consultant to theproject.
The Dublin-headquartered company, which has a significantpresence in Edinburgh, has 80 staff working round the clock forSpowart and an additional temporary workforce of 150.
Alastair Wilkie, UK managing director of Vision, said: "We havemobilised an international team of consultants from as far afield asChile to build an entire bank within a matter of months."
Wilkie said Vision now plans to recruit more than 100 more seniorconsultants by September, including some in Edinburgh, to cope witha rising workload.
"We've put the right critical thinkers in place to work quicklyto create the biggest internet call centre bank in Europe," Wilkiesaid.
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