Capital G Bank is seeing an increase in interest from the business sector since the company became a licensed bank in October.

As a result, the new bank is now exploring ways to grow its corporate market share.

President and chief executive officer Sarah Farrington told The Royal Gazette yesterday that the company has seen a rise in interest from Bermuda businesses.

Mrs. Farrington said she thought that increased interest could be attributed in part to public perception.

"What has been interesting for us is that we have had a lot of interest from people who traditionally would not have given us real consideration. And I think much of that has to do with the fact that we now have bank in our name,'' she said.

"Certainly from a regulatory perspective, a deposit company (as Capital G was before being granted its bank license) is as regulated as a bank. But, traditionally as a deposit company, and I think this goes back to public perception, we would not have necessarily got the amount of corporate interest that we would have liked. And now that we are noticing that we are getting some of that (business).''

Mrs. Farrington said the new bank, based on the expressed interest from the corporate community, has launched a study of that sector.

"At the moment we are currently doing some research in the marketplace about the needs and requirements of business customers. We are hoping that out of that research we can offer products that are more suited to the business community - from sole proprietorships to corporations," she said.

"I am not saying that because we are the new bank we will have everything that companies need immediately but we are interested in listening to what their needs are, and hopefully we can work with them.''

Vice-president of marketing Andrew Vaucrosson added that this is similar to research done by Capital G with retail customers in years past.

Mrs. Farrington put the bank's number of individual clients at greater than 90 percent, although she said the breakdown would be different in terms of dollar amounts.

She added that the bank currently has between 18,000 and 22,000 customers.

Mr. Vaucrosson said: "We are in a product development cycle and we are taking the time to learn about what the consumer wants, because if you think about it we don't have the legacy restrictions that existing banks have, such as the system and operational restrictions of people being used to doing things a certain way. We are not faced with that.''

The bank said companies interested in sharing business views with Capital G Bank should contact the head of client relationship management, Valerie Guagliano.