M&S launches 'relaxed' bank branch

Marks & Spencer's first bank branch has opened its doors, offering seven-days-a-week banking facilities and a pager service meaning customers can carry on with their shopping instead of queuing.

The branch has a more relaxed, feminine appearance than traditional high street banks, with a fuchsia colour scheme, handbag hooks and fresh flowers in vases designed by Sir Terence Conran, who is also behind the bank's debit cards.

The branch at its flagship Marble Arch store is the first of 50 planned to open by the end of 2013, with opening hours mirroring the shops they are sited in.

The Marble Arch store and its bank will regularly open until 11pm while the Olympics takes place. Its more usual hours are from 8am to 9pm from Monday to Saturday and from noon until 6pm on Sundays.

The launch of a new player in the market comes as mainstream banks are battling to win back confidence in the wake of NatWest's IT chaos and Barclays' Libor-fixing scandal.

It also comes on the day it was revealed that Lloyds Banking Group has reached agreement to sell 632 branches to the Co-operative Group, tripling the size of the Co-op's banking arm to nearly 1,000 branches to create a "real challenger bank".

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) stepped up the pressure on banks last week by launching a review into the personal current account market amid concerns over a lack of transparency and competition.

M&S's first current account will charge fees of up to £240 a year in return for "transparent" terms and a range of in-store perks. The company, which expects to create 500 UK jobs from the roll-out of the M&S Bank business, will offer mortgages at a later date.

The retailer already provides credit cards, loans and savings to more than three million customers under M&S Money, which is run as a joint venture with HSBC. M&S Money, along with its existing products, will be rebranded to M&S Bank later this year.

Colin Kersley, chief executive of M&S Bank, said: "Our branches have been designed around the needs of our customers, offering them the style of banking they want, available at times that suit their busy lifestyles."