Marks & Spencer aims for 1m customers with bank If the economy was growing and the world was great, we'd still be launching this today. But it is fortuitous," he said. Some banks are really struggling with trust and what is pleasing is that we can give a real credible alternative to the M&S customer. The Marble Arch branch has been designed with M&S's female shoppers in mind. There are flowers, fridges and fuschia armchairs, which customers can buy in the shop. Cash machines have "handbag hooks" on them. A 7ft "media wall" shows videos of Phil Spencer, the television presenter, talking about financial services. There is also a booth where people can take lessons in online and telephone banking. Mr Kersley said the bank, a joint venture with HSBC, is a "natural progression" from M&S Money, which has offered credit cards and savings products, but not current accounts, for more than 20 years. He said M&S hopes to attract "hundreds of thousands" of current account customers. He would not be drawn on specific figures, but said that among M&S's 21 million regular shoppers there is a core of 800,000 who "have virtually every product" M&S Money offers. Other executives at M&S are more bullish and believe that a million customers is achievable. Mr Kersley said power in the UK banking sector is too concentrated among a small number of players. One of the reasons why banking has gone wrong is that we have got four or five big animals and fewer small ones. What I really like is that you've got M&S Bank, Tesco and Sainsbury's are doing things, Metro and Virgin have come on board, so it's a different type of financial services and it is much more retail-focused. I think that is healthy," he said. Steven Sharp, M&S's marketing director, said the idea for a standalone M&S Bank came to him in 2007. "I was thinking about how we could make our financial services division bigger and better, and Northern Rock happened," he said. I was watching it on TV and I thought 'Those are our customers. If we had a bank account we'd be hoovering up money.""