C&g - co-op

meatandtwoveg

10_66 wrote: »

I'm in exactly the same position as you. I've spoken to someone at C&G who seemed very clued up on the situation and this is what I've been told:

Anyone who has a fixed rate account (fixed ISA or fixed Step Bond) will be staying with the Lloyds Banking Group, the account will be managed by Lloyds Banking Group and as of May enquiries for these accounts will be made to Lloyds Group, this is because as of May this year C&G are having to migrate away from the Lloyds Group, and C&G won't be able to access the fixed rate account details on their system, enquiries will have to be made to Lloyds Group (this was the reason that those of us with the step bond accounts were given new account numbers last year so they will migrate over onto the Lloyds system).

Hey, thanks for that, great info, so.....My three year stepped rate bond matures in October 2014. So in that month, i will need to contact Lloyds Group. So i will be a customer of Lloyds Group from May 2013, not C&G, and not CO-OP. Is this good news or bad news? I ask as are not Lloyds Group state owned now, so not in good shape? Which is worrying. What is to become of Lloyds Group in the future?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2313902/Lloyds-Banking-Groups-sale-600-branches-Co-operative-Group-collapses.html

Lloyds, which is 39 per cent owned by the taxpayer...


Thanks for the reply...

10_66

meatandtwoveg wrote: »

Hey, thanks for that, great info, so.....My three year stepped rate bond matures in October 2014. So in that month, i will need to contact Lloyds Group. So i will be a customer of Lloyds Group from May 2013, not C&G, and not CO-OP. Is this good news or bad news? I ask as are not Lloyds Group state owned now, so not in good shape? Which is worrying. What is to become of Lloyds Group in the future?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2313902/Lloyds-Banking-Groups-sale-600-branches-Co-operative-Group-collapses.html

Lloyds, which is 39 per cent owned by the taxpayer...


Thanks for the reply...

Hi meatandtwoveg, re your PM, I've tried to send a reply, but on trying to send it I got an MSE message saying "meatandtwoveg has chosen not to receive private messages or may not be allowed to receive private messages. Therefore you may not send your message to him/her".

So if you're unable to change your PM settings, I can post my reply here if you would prefer. Let me know if you want me to do that.

bowlhead99

.....My three year stepped rate bond matures in October 2014. So in that month, i will need to contact Lloyds Group.

More likely they will contact you.

So i will be a customer of Lloyds Group from May 2013, not C&G, and not CO-OP. Is this good news or bad news?

C&G have been owned by Lloyds Banking Group since 1997. If your account is one of the ones Lloyds isn't going to sell (as 10_66 was told), it will still be owned by a part of Lloyds Banking Group. The money in your account is still yours as it is today, and you can have it back when it matures in 18 months from now.

If your account was instead one of the ones that Lloyds sold, it was previously expected that it would be taken over by Coop and rebranded TSB. Now the Coop deal has fallen through, such accounts would still be rebranded TSB. The TSB business currently owned by Lloyds would likely be sold to a brand new company, which would be listed on the stock exchange and so can be owned by anybody (just like Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC, Citibank, etc are listed on the stock exchange and primarily owned by loads of unconnected institutions and individual members of the public).

None of this makes any difference to the holder of a fixed deposit who needs zero day-to-day customer service and does not have balances in excess of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme limits. Whether the TSB branded service (either operated by Coop or an independent listed bank) or the Lloyds branded service would have been better, is speculation, as a Co-op service with 600 extra ex-Lloyds/C&G branches does not currently exist, and an independent TSB bank does not currently exist.

I ask as are not Lloyds Group state owned now, so not in good shape? Which is worrying.

Following some unwise deals during the banking crisis (notably paying too much for Halifax/Bank of Scotland, which some would say they were unwisely pushed into doing), Lloyds had a bailout in 2009 and so are part owned by the state (less than 50%). Obviously this was not good if you were a shareholder at the time and your ownership got heavily diluted by the government, but better than it all collapsing worthless.

Their being part owned by the state doesn't particularly bother me as a customer, in fact the state influence is arguably more likely to prevent them doing something risky/stupid to destroy their business value than encourage it, and the government will not want to see them go to the wall, which is probably a good thing as a customer, compared to some smaller independent banks. The government is just looking to grow the value of the business from its current levels so it can offload its stake in due course. Having a big shareholder with that influence might currently prevent Lloyds doing what it wants, for better or worse, but not a big deal for customers.

In terms of whether they are 'not in great shape' they are better placed than some other banks and worse than some others. The market still thinks they're worth 30-40 billion or so and one of the top 20 most valuable companies listed on the UK stock exchange. Looking at a graph of their share price, the market thinks a share in Lloyds is worth pretty much what it was at the beginning of 2010, though these things move up and down over time:

What is to become of Lloyds Group in the future?

They will carry on being a bank. The government at some point will sell their stake to other institutions and the public, and the group will continue to sell banking services to individuals and businesses.

The bank going forward won't contain the 'TSB' and 'C&G' branches which they are packaging up and preparing for sale under Project Verde which they have to do to meet regulatory requirements. The sale, which has been on the cards for years, was previously going to be to Co-op as Plan A, while the flotation option (or sell to someone else, if anyone comes up with the cash) is Plan B.

Does that cover it?

pqrdef

C&G is an odd beast. There's a C&G plc, which of course is wholly owned by LBG, but no longer seems to have a banking licence. Its business is designing and marketing and administering mortgage products, but not actually lending the money - the mortgage contracts have LTSB plc as the lender. The profit is in the arrangement fees.

There's also C&G Savings, which isn't part of C&G plc, it's a division of LTSB plc, which sells LTSB savings products through the C&G branches and website (like Birmingham Midshires is a division of HBOS which sells HBOS accounts through other channels).

And in front of all this there's a brand-management team that fosters the image and reputation of the good old building society that ceased to exist 18 years ago.

Before Verde, the plan was for C&G plc to close all its branches, but continue to exist as a mortgage provider, working through other channels, like LTSB branches. They may have been planning a bit of franchising, like BM uses the AA. The Essential Waitrose mortgage? It's the way forward.

Come Verde, they switched from closing the branches to selling the branches, and most of the customers. But they don't seem to have ever actually said that they were selling the whole business, in the sense that the new owner would be able to sell C&G branded mortgages, or in fact that there was any change in the plan for going forward branchless. Losing the existing customers wouldn't hurt them much, because the profit is in the churning, and the after-sales service is only a cost.

opinions4u

Come Verde, they switched from closing the branches to selling the branches, and most of the customers. But they don't seem to have ever actually said that they were selling the whole business, in the sense that the new owner would be able to sell C&G branded mortgages, or in fact that there was any change in the plan for going forward branchless. Losing the existing customers wouldn't hurt them much, because the profit is in the churning, and the after-sales service is only a cost.

The C&G brand name will remain with Lloyds Banking Group.

How (or if) they use it remains to be seen.

meatandtwoveg

bowlhead99 wrote: »

Does that cover it?

Brilliant post thanks:beer:

atush

spam, reported

meatandtwoveg

Delete.......

Vortigern

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My thanks added to meatandtwoveg for deleting the quoted spam.

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meatandtwoveg

bowlhead99 wrote: »

More likely they will contact you. C&G have been owned by Lloyds Banking Group since 1997. If your account is one of the ones Lloyds isn't going to sell (as 10_66 was told), it will still be owned by a part of Lloyds Banking Group. The money in your account is still yours as it is today, and you can have it back when it matures in 18 months from now.

If your account was instead one of the ones that Lloyds sold, it was previously expected that it would be taken over by Coop and rebranded TSB. Now the Coop deal has fallen through, such accounts would still be rebranded TSB. The TSB business currently owned by Lloyds would likely be sold to a brand new company, which would be listed on the stock exchange and so can be owned by anybody (just like Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC, Citibank, etc are listed on the stock exchange and primarily owned by loads of unconnected institutions and individual members of the public).

None of this makes any difference to the holder of a fixed deposit who needs zero day-to-day customer service and does not have balances in excess of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme limits. Whether the TSB branded service (either operated by Coop or an independent listed bank) or the Lloyds branded service would have been better, is speculation, as a Co-op service with 600 extra ex-Lloyds/C&G branches does not currently exist, and an independent TSB bank does not currently exist.
Following some unwise deals during the banking crisis (notably paying too much for Halifax/Bank of Scotland, which some would say they were unwisely pushed into doing), Lloyds had a bailout in 2009 and so are part owned by the state (less than 50%). Obviously this was not good if you were a shareholder at the time and your ownership got heavily diluted by the government, but better than it all collapsing worthless.

Their being part owned by the state doesn't particularly bother me as a customer, in fact the state influence is arguably more likely to prevent them doing something risky/stupid to destroy their business value than encourage it, and the government will not want to see them go to the wall, which is probably a good thing as a customer, compared to some smaller independent banks. The government is just looking to grow the value of the business from its current levels so it can offload its stake in due course. Having a big shareholder with that influence might currently prevent Lloyds doing what it wants, for better or worse, but not a big deal for customers.

In terms of whether they are 'not in great shape' they are better placed than some other banks and worse than some others. The market still thinks they're worth 30-40 billion or so and one of the top 20 most valuable companies listed on the UK stock exchange. Looking at a graph of their share price, the market thinks a share in Lloyds is worth pretty much what it was at the beginning of 2010, though these things move up and down over time:


They will carry on being a bank. The government at some point will sell their stake to other institutions and the public, and the group will continue to sell banking services to individuals and businesses.

The bank going forward won't contain the 'TSB' and 'C&G' branches which they are packaging up and preparing for sale under Project Verde which they have to do to meet regulatory requirements. The sale, which has been on the cards for years, was previously going to be to Co-op as Plan A, while the flotation option (or sell to someone else, if anyone comes up with the cash) is Plan B.

Does that cover it?

Great post...I have some questions..I have a three year stepped rate bond, which will now be a Lloyds Banking Group Three Year Stepped Rate Bond. No longer a C&G. This migration will take place towards the end of August 2013. So i will be a customer primarily of Lloyds Banking Group. When i opened the account C&G are quite old fashioned in the way they do business. If you have your interest paid monthly, they say they have to send you a statement every month by law. So every month you get a bit of paper showing any interest paid for that given month. Could this change under Lloyds Banking Group, its a real pain having paper mail sent every month, for a number of reasons and i have asked C&G to only send one annually and they just seem to keep sending them every month.

Secondly, when i opened the account, i opened it via a cheque, they did not do online transfers via CHAPS. They said their systems were a little outdated. Anyway after alot of twoing and frowing i managed to speak to higher up mangement, they said that when the account matures, it will probably no longer be a C&G product. The new owner of the account would hopefully have the capability to issue the money in the account on maturity via CHAPS. Do Lloyds Banking Group offer the service on maturing Fixed Rate Bonds, allowing the monies to be deposited back to the depositers current account via CHAPS or similar.

Thanks again.....