“We will be dealing only with billionaires.”

Sean Hoey, the managing director of International Bank Vaults’ (IBV) new London branch, said the above. He also makes it clear that they “won’t deal with millionaires”.

IBV caters to the super-rich by providing a safe place for them to store their valuables.

Their new branch, which is in a 120-year-old former mansion next to the Dorchester Hotel on London’s Park Lane, will open for business next week.

The Guardian with the details:

Hoey, who was poached by IBV from Harrods where he was in charge of the Knightsbridge department store’s safety deposit boxes, claimed the new site would be “far more exclusive than Harrods”.

The cheapest safety deposit box, which is just 5cm high, 16cm wide and 49cm deep, costs £600-a-year-to rent. That compares to £465 for a box twice the size in Harrods, and £240 in Metro Bank – the UK’s largest supplier of safety deposit boxes with 150,000 boxes across 70 branches.

The smallest box is still big enough, Hoey says, to store a wide range of jewellery and “a fair few gold bars – they’re only the size of your mobile phone.”

If billionaires have more gold than that there are boxes the size of filing cabinets, and even a whole room for £2.5m a year. “We have had a few enquiries about it.”

IBV is owned by South African multimillionaire Ashok Sewnarain (below), who says that they decided to open the London branch to meet a growing demand for safety deposit boxes, from the world’s wealthiest people, who are afraid of a possible reaction against rising inequality.

You heard it here first, folks. The rich are terrified of a revolution.

He says the bank vault, which is in Stanhope House – a gothic-style mansion built in 1899 for soap magnate Robert William Hudson – will have more of the feel of an “exclusive private members club than a bank”.

Sewnarain has bought a Rolls-Royce with the number plate II IBV, which can be booked to ferry customers to and from the vault.

IBV’s advert for a chauffeur to drive the Rolls states: “Our clientele is the UHNW [ultra-high net worth]. IBV London requires the experience and professionalism of a well-trained chauffeur to welcome and drive our high-profile/esteemed clientele to their desired destination.”

When they arrive, clients will be given the full treatment. The gallery on the IBV website contains a photo-story of what it would be like to go to the bank and make use of its services.

When they arrive at the site, customers will be greeted by two doormen who will guide them through the security which includes fingerprint and iris scans to open doors to the basement vault. Then, “white-gloved custodians” will help customers collect their boxes.

Unless you’re a billionaire, this is the closest you’ll probably ever get to entering the vaults, so enjoy this oddly staged play-by-play shot at another IBV branch:

Yes, those are gold coins.

Anyone can apply for a box if they have enough money, and if they’re deemed a respectable person.

“We don’t want money-launderers or undesirables, we want to know our customers. Most will be referred to us by private banks, but we will still vet them again.”

[Hoey] says some of the people who had already applied would be rejected because the bank’s committee had doubts about the origins of their funds.

I fear I may be rejected on multiple fronts, then.

So…about that revolution?

[source:guardian]