Bank appoints new manager

EXPERIENCED business banker Lesley Cozens’ has been appointed as the new Branch Manager at Handelsbanken, Warrington.
With over 27 years’ experience since she started her career with the prestigious Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, Lesley’s repute will be familiar to many among the business community, particularly in the North West, where she has an excellent track record as a banking professional.
Handelsbanken, operating in Great Britain for over 30 years, is particularly excited by the appointment as the partnership upholds those values deemed important to ensure superior customer service with a local touch. Lesley brings with her a wealth of banking experience and the knowledge gained from being Chairman of the National
Mentoring and Befriending Society.
Handelsbanken, one of Sweden’s largest banks with an award-winning reputation for customer service and rated highly by both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, seeks the very best to serve the community where branches are located.
Favouring a hands-on, personal approach to helping clients attain their financial objectives, Lesley is thrilled to be heading up a branch so enthusiastically committed to traditional banking values. – “Handelsbanken’s approach is to deliver a service akin to that of the vintage bank manager,” she says. – “There are no tiered telephone answering
systems, no sales targets, no off-the-shelf products – just an experienced, knowledgeable local team that is not only committed to building personal relationships with their customers, but also has the ability to assess their clients’ needs, recommend a solution and implement it at local level without having to wait for approval from the centre.”
Central to Handelsbanken’s success is decentralisation, permitting lending decisions, administration, documentation and customer services to be controlled and executed from the local branch. This approach has shown terrific success elsewhere in Great Britain: Handelsbanken now has 112 branches across the country, where the Bank’s personal and business clients’ portfolios are demonstrating rapid growth.
Lesley says, “More and more customers are finding Handelsbanken’s approach like a breath of fresh air after years of struggling with the poor customer service, never-ending call centres and a frustratingly impersonal attitude that is associated with many of the high street banks. Business owners and many affluent personal customers alike are looking for a more bespoke and individual service and this is what Handelsbanken aims to provide – and what is making the bank such a popular choice with this section of the market.”
She further enthuses, “We have an excellent team with a wealth of banking experience between us and are totally committed to bringing the Handelsbanken philosophy to the local community.”
These aren’t empty words either. Customers are welcome and encouraged to get to know Lesley in the Warrington branch of Handlesbanken, and with her successful track record, determination and keenness to establish local relationships in the private and the business sector – just ask for her by name.