The bank continues to perform relatively well despite higher taxation and lower interest rates. We have plenty of capital and liquidity to deploy on the right lending opportunities.
We are unusual amongst UK private banks in not offering wealth management services. One of many benefits of this is that are we are happy to offer banking to suitable US citizens in the UK.
I have received much positive feedback from my Summer and Winter Letters, which began in 2008. Encouraged by readers’ generous remarks, I am trying my hand at a book. Impact Banker is about what I have learnt from working at the bank over nearly four decades. It is available to order online from all good bookshops or Amazon, and there will be a book launch for customers at the bank on Wednesday, 18th March.
Our 12th-generation partner, Amy, has had a second baby. It is pleasing to think the 13th generation is well on its way.
Our fraud-prevention techniques are highly sophisticated and comparatively effective. One source of frustration for customers is that payments are sometimes held up. There are multiplying regulatory and procedural reasons why we, or our counterparty banks, may hold up a payment. If timeliness is important, it is best to instruct payments a couple of days early.
If you have not yet seen the Golden Bottle Trust’s 40th-anniversary report, it is available on our website: www.hoaresbank.co.uk/golden-bottle-2025. It shows one of the ways we try to live our purpose as ‘good bankers and good citizens’.
The Golden Bottle Trust is playing a catalytic role in coordinating a range of organisations working to preserve and restore marine health along the English Channel. Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction luminary and undersea explorer, once made this important observation: “How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.”
Alexander S Hoare
January 2026
