We present below an extract from our latest balance sheet. Despite my ‘small is beautiful’ mantra, the footings keep growing, but I am pleased to say the balance sheet remains strongly capitalised and liquid. The statutory report and accounts (and other interesting reports) are available elsewhere on this website.
Our swift response to telephone calls has always been a strong point, but recently we updated our processes. Around 85% of banking queries are now resolved by the person answering the call, without the need for further handoff. The system will benefit from further refinement, and we do not want to create a call centre.
In the spring we achieved some very strong scores for customer satisfaction (Net Promoter Score) and for staff engagement and happiness. I like to think the family and board have had a part in setting a culture where staff and customers are relatively happy.
We continue to work at simplifying our processes and enabling our staff to improve customer experience. Banking is comparatively simple, but striking a balance between regulatory compliance, innovation, resilience, profitability, and customer service becomes complicated. Some customers are frustrated at our evolving measures to stop fraud; others would have been more frustrated by the enormous losses these measures have prevented.
We take July as the month Sir Richard Hoare started the business in 1672. Amy Rodwell is the first partner of the 12th generation and our 50th partner in all, I have served for 10% of the bank’s 350 years, and so the family pursues its mission to perpetuate a profitable family business.
Please look out for articles commemorating 350 years of bank and family history on our website (click here). Customers will be invited to a service of thanksgiving on 15th September at St Paul’s Cathedral, which is right beside the site in Cheapside where Sir Richard set up shop at the Sign of the Golden Bottle.
The war in Ukraine is atrocious. We don’t provide services to any oligarchs or other potentates and I close with a line from the Russian Imperial poet Peter Vyazemsky (1792-1878): ‘God of frostbite, God of famine, beggars, cripples by the yard, farms with no crops to examine – that’s him, that’s your Russian God.’
Alexander Hoare
July 2022
