Now offering mortgages, Benny Higgins says that Tesco Bank has arrived as a major player.

From an office at the top of the new Tesco Bank headquarters in Glasgow's Renfield Street, the sun and clouds shift in a chiaroscuro that fleetingly illuminates the prosperous southern suburbs of the city, on to Eaglesham and the forests and hills beyond. It has been one of the wettest summers in 100 years; coinciding with one of the most torrid few years in the history of the UK's – and perhaps singularly Scotland's – banking sector.

Benny Higgins, Tesco Bank's chief executive, has occupied senior positions at both RBS and Bank of Scotland and if the banking sector is troubled, the tall, softly-spoken maths graduate is seemingly unruffled. He remains confident that the bank, which has been a wholly-owned part of the global retail giant since RBS sold its 50% stake for £950 million in 2008, is on track for success after completing the final phase of migrating its credit card accounts to its own systems infrastructure.

After providing savings and insurance products, last month the bank entered the combative mortgage market. Higgins delivers a litany of achievements: The bank has 6.5 million customer accounts; savings deposits have grown to £5.4 billion and baseline profits for year ending February 2012 were up 29% to £203m. Tesco Bank is now the UK's largest supermarket bank in a highly-competitive arena in which the high street majors are vying to attract customers' attention as cynicism toward traditional lenders has hardened.

He relates the history: "Originally, the bank was a joint venture between Tesco and the Royal Bank of Scotland and I joined RBS just when the joint venture got going so I was involved from the very origins.

"RBS in its pre-NatWest days had a big network in Scotland but a pretty sparse network in the south so [then chief executive] Sir George Mathewson thought that it would make sense to expand its distribution reach by creating a strategic joint venture with Tesco. During my years in RBS I was involved in a lot of joint ventures but I would say that had all the hallmarks of being the best that I was ever involved in."

Since late 2008, Higgins has been tasked with growing an organisation that employed 200 people and which did not have its own premises into a bank that now employs 3000 people, with two buildings in Edinburgh, one in Glasgow and another in Newcastle.

"We have had to migrate more than five million customers from the old RBS platforms to our own platforms and that was completed some three months ago; we also had to build up all the specialist functions to run a bank, including treasury, audit, and an IT division," says Higgins.

It wasn't a seamless segue, and last year Higgins issued an "unreserved" apology after IT problems resulted in savers being locked out of their online accounts – though the subsequent RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank backlog of complaints has rather relegated Tesco's problems to a lower league and the overall achievement is one with which Higgins is clearly satisfied.

"It has been a huge job. I've been lucky enough to have been in some big organisations, I know what it's like to be in quite exciting environments and I think what we've achieved in the past three and a half years has measured up to anything I've been involved in during my career – and I'm very proud of what everyone has achieved."

Locating the hub of the organisation in Scotland, he says, was for no other reason than the fact that he believed there was a rich pool of talent in the central belt. "We didn't choose to have three of our four locations here because of any reason other than that – and it has paid off."

The company has also decided to keep all contact centre staff based in the UK. "I think what is unusual is that we have no sales incentives," says Higgins. "There are bonuses for managers on a balanced score card that takes into account trade and profits – which is natural – but typically people in contact centres are incentivised to cross-sell and we thought that the right thing was to focus on the customer, which within this industry was actually quite a radical thing to do."

Tesco Bank launched mortgages on August 6 and Higgins says that while this is traditionally a quiet time for the marketplace, he has been pleased with the response. "It's a natural product for us to sell," he says. "Some 85% of personal debt among Tesco customers is represented by their mortgage."

The bank also has current accounts on the horizon, though he is certainly aware of the challenges of this market sector. "It's an interesting area," he says. "I've given evidence to the Treasury Select Committee on competitive markets. A competitive market is where there is a sufficient number of providers offering an adequate choice in a market where price and value are transparent.

"And crucially, one in which where there are no perceived or actual barriers to switching. I'm afraid that in the current account market there isn't transparency – and more importantly, there is a perception and a reality that switching is difficult.

"If there's one thing that we would implore the government regulators to try to do it would be to make the market one where switching is easier and is perceived to be easier – that would be a major leap forward."

Tesco Bank now has its own insurance company, operating as a joint venture with Ageas (UK) and he stresses: "If you call us to speak about motor and home insurance or go online you will be dealing with us directly."

As a veteran of Standard Life, RBS and HBoS he is clearly acutely aware of the current challenges to the financial services industry and of the reputational damage that it has suffered but as a member of Glasgow Economic Leadership Board, the Financial Services Advisory Board and Glasgow Commonwealth Games Legacy Committee he is keen to highlight the underlying strengths of Scotland – and of Glasgow.

"I'm proud of what Scotland has achieved over the years and the strengths it has had in the sector that I have been fortunate enough to work in. And while in recent years that sector has taken some knocks it's important to make a contribution to maintain its strength and reputation."

With more than £1 billion spent on the company's credit cards each month and £1.5 billion taken in customer deposits in its fixed rate saver account the question is how sustainable the growth rate is – especially as Higgins is on record as saying that the bank is not aiming for targets in market share.

"There are 15 million Clubcard households in the UK and we are focused on the customers. The target is to do the right thing and the numbers will look after themselves," he says.

"Financial services as an industry has talked more about looking after customers than it has done and if we continue to reward customer loyalty we will stand out from the crowd."