Metro Bank says over 500,000 customer accounts opened since 2010

LONDON (Reuters) - New British lender Metro Bank said over 500,000 customer accounts had been opened at the bank, with customer deposits more than doubling over the past year and total lending rising by 90 percent. The bank, which opened for business in 2010 as Britain's first new high street lender for more than a century, said deposits rose to 3.4 billion pounds in the first quarter, up 109 percent year-on-year. Total loans grew to 1.8 billion pounds. The bank made a loss of 8.5 million pounds in the quarter, compared with a 10.6 million loss in the same quarter the year before. (Reporting by Matt Scuffham, editing by Sinead Cruise)