He has a few more ideas in the pipeline, spotting opportunities where he can see commercial advantage. But most recently, he has become chairman of the National Skills Academy of Financial Services, as he is keen to champion the body and the more altruistic side of financial services.
“I wanted to formalise my charitable involvement for some time,” he said. “I think the financial services industry is really important and having well-educated consumers is good for us and good for the consumer.”
But he believes that skills in the industry are also important. “I’ve been in the financial services industry for 30 years and in all my experience in that time, the companies that do well and that differentiate themselves are those with the best people. It’s about people with the right attitude and the people with the right skills,” he said.
The NSAFS is a charity that assists companies in their training and helps bring new people into the sector with apprenticeships. It runs financial capability projects for large corporates involved in social responsibility programmes, as well as helping businesses whether small or large recruit new people. Financial advice firms have also benefited.
Mr Thomson said: “In all the time I’ve been in business, the role [of the intermediary] has become more complex and more highly regulated. The need for skills becomes more important. Those IFAs who develop their skills and activities further generally do better and and their custmers do better.
“In the case of pensions, it will be the second largest financial transaction people will make in their lives – in some cases it will be bigger than their mortgage. It’s the duty of IFAs to make sure they’re equipped to advise clients correctly.”
Mr Thomson is an entrepreneur by background. He went into direct marketing at an early stage in his career and found himself moving into financial services, with Sun Life of Canada. After working as sales and marketing director for four years, he saw the opportunities available with the arrival of the Big Bang and decided to set up his own business.
With the launch of City Financial Group, which he ran for 11 years, Mr Thomson aimed to take advantage of the new rules and technical knowledge that City firms needed navigate the new arena.
He also launched the Financial Services Forum, a membership organisation that attempts to help financial services executives improve their marketing.
But it is Metro Bank that Mr Thomson is most closely associated with, known for opening on Sundays and offering water bowls for customers’ pet dogs.
Of Metro, which is expected to go public next year, Mr Thomson said: “I believe the most important thing to customers is value. One of the things I’m very passionate about is that profit is a by-product of doing something well for the customer. One of the problems with UK financial services is that a large part has forgotten that and thinks it’s in business to make money.
“It’s forgotten that profit is a by-product of giving the customer a better experience or service. Those companies that remember that do that very well.”
He decided to step down from Metro last year after five years at the helm, largely because he prefers to be an entrepreneur. He said: “I like building things. The first three years [at Metro] were very exciting. I loved the building of it, but it was always very clear I didn’t want to chair the bank as a plc.” He decided to step down completely from the board, but is still a significant shareholder and focuses on his other interests - developing new ideas and spending more time on his charity work.
While he wil not say anything about the former - apart from the fact that he hopes to announce something later this year - he is passionate about the latter. One of the most important aspects is helping people who are worse off than him and persuading people to learn more about money.
He said: “One of the things that the NSAFS has done recently has been to introduce apprenticeships. It’s helping people from disadvantaged backgrounds into employment.”
It relates back to his past growing up in Newcastle where youngsters who did not go to university took up apprenticeships in the shipbuilding industry. But it is also about making a difference to people’s lives on a more generic basis that inspires Mr Thomson. He said: “One of the projects of the NSAFS runs is for Lloyds Banking Group, called Money for Life. It is all about helping young people manage their money effectively. The level of financial literacy is incredibly low, anything that helps educate them is very, very important – dealing with money is going to be one of the key essential skills of their life.”
He added that personal finance now being taught through the national curriculum will not reach everyone, so his charity will still be needed.
“People who don’t do well in education will not benefit from financial education being introduced into the national curriculum,” he said. “They maybe can’t study because of home difficulties - the fact that they can’t learn English or arithmatic, it isn’t going to overcome that.”
For those struggling to come to terms with their finances and just starting out in life, they may benefit from the wisdom that Mr Thomson has learned over the past 30 years.
Melanie Tringham is features editor of Financial Adviser
2013 National Skills Academy for Financial Services, chairman
2007 – 2012 Metro Bank founder and chairman
2007 - 2010 Teamspirit, non-executive director
1998 - present Financial Services Forum co founder and chairman
1987 - 1998 City Financial Marketing, group chief executive
1983 – 1987 Sun Life Financial of Canada, sales and marketing director
