John Kay in an interview last year for The Mint, singled out Handelsbanken as a ray of hope in the banking world. According to Kay, it “had grown quite rapidly by offering really a very old-fashioned type of banking services”. The Mint went to talk to the bank’s UK chief of operations, Georgina Silvester, to find out why employees are empowered to make decisions, and where “the branch is the bank” are winning ways.