A new private bank has been set up, claiming to be the first to obtain a banking licence for 30 years.
Hampden and Co has opened its doors in Edinburgh and London to clients after clearing the regulatory process at the beginning of this month.
It aims to inject competition into the 400-year-old industry and will benefit from being free of the trust problems afflicting established banks.
The firm was founded five years ago by Ray Entwhistle, former chairman of Adam & Company.
That company is the Edinburgh-based Royal Bank of Scotland subsidiary for high value customers.
The bank, backed by 250 shareholders, has raised capital of nearly £50m for the launch.
The Hampden and Co. chief executive is Graeme Hartop, who was formerly head of Scottish Widows Bank. There are 50 staff working for the company.
Mr Hartop said: “The timing for launch is ideal as we continue to experience an improved economic environment, strong client demand and a favourable competitive landscape as a large number of the existing banks continue to deal with significant legacy issues.
“We will deliver a traditional client-led private banking service, fully focused on client needs and not product sales targets, which will lead to strong client-to-banker relationships.”
The bank’s launch came a day after Royal Bank of Scotland revealed that some 600,000 customer payments had gone missing due to a major technology glitch, only months after a record fine for a similar issue.
However, despite this, Mr Hartop said he was aware of the potential difficulties in breaking the market stronghold of long-established private banks.
“We have business plans to acquire high net worth investors and there is a lot of opportunities to grow, but we will build up gradually, not putting on huge volumes in the early days. We want about 1,000 clients in our first year,” he said.