Ten years on, Skipton International is a True Local Success Story

Ten years on, Skipton International is a True Local Success Story PR Newswire ST. PETER PORT, Guernsey, October 15, 2012 ST. PETER PORT, Guernsey, October 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- True business success stories are hard to come by in the current economic climate. This month, in Guernsey, they are celebrating just that, with 10 years of local mortgage lending by Skipton International. In October 2002 Skipton Guernsey, as it was then called, bought Jersey based Standard Chartered Grindlay's Guernsey mortgage book and at the same time moved in to its own offices at Fairbairn House with its own staff, having previously operated in Guernsey as a managed bank since 1995. The changes marked the start of local Guernsey mortgage lending operations in Guernsey and the beginning of the bank as an independent operation. Previously, the bank had specialised in offering savings accounts to both the local and global expatriate markets, an area of activity which has also grown rapidly over the last 10 years Market conditions were very different ten years ago. Throughout 2002, the UK Bank of England Base Rate stood at 4%, in stark contrast to their historically low level of 0.5% today. The Base Rate was slowly being cut, partially in response to the weakening economic prospects following the end of the dot com boom and rates would eventually reach a low point of 3.5% in July 2003, before rising again to 5.