Three months after launching an operation in France, online bank Egg yesterday disclosed that it wanted to crack the United States.
The bank has installed a team of 10 people in San Francisco and expects to spend £5m over the next few months on researching Egg as a brand in the US and looking at the gaps not being satisfied by US financial services companies.
Paul Gratton, Egg's chief executive, said initial research had uncovered surprisingly high levels of dissatisfaction among affluent consumers about the service they receive from many providers.
He added it was too early to say what products Egg might launch in the US. The team has been given "a blank sheet of paper".
News of its American foray came as the bank, which is 79% owned by insurer Prudential, revealed that its loss for the year to December 31 narrowed to £16.6m from £87.8m in 2001.
But the bank added that in Britain it anticipated "challenging market conditions" this year, and the shares closed down 8.4% at 104p.
The UK business notched up a pre-tax profit of £34.8m and signed up 610,000 customers during the year, lifting the total to almost 2.6m. More than 1.9m of these hold its credit card.
But the French business, which was officually launched in November, made higher-than-expected losses of £46.7m. This included £14m spent on marketing and brand building - including a controversial advertising campaign which had a theme of challenging urban myths.
Of the 69,000 people who applied for the French version of the Egg card, La Carte Egg, during the venture's first two months, 44,000 were accepted, but only 27,000 are expected to end up as customers.
This is partly due to the fact that taking out a credit card in France is a lengthy process involving "significant amounts of verification data to comply with French money-laundering rules," said Egg.
However, those who have gone the distance are turning to its plastic more frequently than Egg expected and using their card an average of 15 times a month.
Mr Gratton said it would be launching a loan product in France in the spring and added that the bank aimed to sign up a total of 250,000 to 300,000 customers there by the end of the year.
Egg's total UK unsecured lending balances rose to £3.3bn. Banking analysts at Fox-Pitt Kelton claimed the bank "remains very much at risk to any credit deterioration," but Mr Gratton said credit quality "remains strong".
He added: "If anything, customers seem to be behaving more prudently rather than less."
