Vernon Hill was Chairman and founder of Metro Bank. He was also the founder and former Chairman and president of Commerce Bank which he founded in 1973 as a one-branch bank in metro Philadelphia with nine staff and $1.5 million. Hill was dismissed in 2007 from Commerce Bancorp in the US after a probe by a federal regulator into his dealings with related parties, including real estate transactions involving him and his relatives. In 2010, he established Metro Bank, the first high street bank to launch in the UK in more than a century. He departed as Metro’s chair in 2019, months after it revealed a reporting error that forced it to raise new capital and triggered regulatory investigations. Vernon built Commerce Bank into one of the largest banks in America with 15,000 team members, 500 branches and $50 billion of assets. It was purchased in July 2007 by TD Financial for $8.5 billion. Vernon is Chairman of Pet Plan North America, Hill -Townsend and co-chairman of Bankstocks.com. He is a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.