HERE is the man whose ever-present smile is being used to face down the opposition in York.

For Neil Ballantyne, commercial banking manager of HSBC Bank in the city, is his employer's answer to bespectacled Howard Brown, the Halifax Bank's ubiquitous all-singing, all-dancing human icon.

He was chosen with eight commercial bank managers in towns and cities across the UK to become "the face" of the HSBC.

Customers at the Parliament Street branch have seen his face looming everywhere - on posters and cardboard cut-outs.

Neil said: "I'm becoming so recognised that if I put on my glasses people think I'm trying to go incommunicado."

He was an obvious choice to show the human face behind local banking.

He started his career 28 years ago at the Nessgate branch in York - now Waterstones - and after a varied career returned full circle to his home city of York two years ago.

Meanwhile, his face is having an effect.

Some customers have asked: "Does he exist?"

Another is reported to have said: "It's nice to know that he's a real person and not just an actor."

But the biggest compliment of all was when he heard that there was a woman taking photographs of her children against a background of a large Neil Ballantyne poster.

He said: "When I heard this I rushed out of the bank - and it was true.

"The photographer was my wife, Jane.

"I suppose she was trying to remind the children of what I look like. I've been working pretty hard lately!"

Updated: 11:05 Monday, May 10, 2004