LLoyds TSB branch sell off - For customers who wish to stay with Lloyds

Thrugelmir

opinions4u wrote: »

I'm sure they really wanted to sell off 600 branches and associated accounts.

If Lloyds had known the extent of the regulators demands along with the state of HBOS's balance sheet at the time of the merger of convenience. Then the merger would not have happened.

Thrugelmir

Heng_Leng wrote: »

It was wholly Lloyds' decision to recreate TSB. Lloyds could have met the requirements by hiving off Halifax and Bank of Scotland but chose not to.

Not as simple as you suggest. HBOS is a far more complex entity in terms of its commercial property loans and other assets.

rb10

Thrugelmir wrote: »

If Lloyds had known the extent of the regulators demands along with the state of HBOS's balance sheet at the time of the merger of convenience. Then the merger would not have happened.

You know this for certain?

Lloyds TSB's retail book (current accounts, mortgages etc) was struggling until HBOS started managing it.

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Not as simple as you suggest. HBOS is a far more complex entity in terms of its commercial property loans and other assets.

They still could have just sold ex-HBOS branches and customers, keeping the other HBOS assets. In the same way as they are selling ex-Lloyds TSB branches and customers whilst keeping all other ex-Lloyds TSB assets.

LGB chose the branches to sell based on an assessment of the type of customer they wanted to keep.

Thrugelmir

rb10 wrote: »

Lloyds TSB's retail book (current accounts, mortgages etc) was struggling until HBOS started managing it.

Wrong way around. HBOS (along with RBS) was on the point of collapse in October 2008. Brown and Darling persuaded Eric Daniels (then CEO of Lloyds) to take on HBOS without conducting due diligence. The treasury provided a £25 billion loan to Lloyds to enable them to keep HBOS afloat. This loan was not disclosed to Lloyds shareholders at the time of the merger. Took Lloyds 6 months to conduct a review of HBOS's mortgage lending book. At the end it was revealed that around a 30% was outside Lloyds own risk criteria, i.e. too high.

Commercial property that's another matter. Whistleblower Moore springs to mind as well.

For a good read try.

The Worst Bank in the World? HBOS’s Calamitous Seven Year Life

http://www.ianfraser.org/the-worst-bank-in-the-world-hboss-calamitous-seven-year-life/

Thrugelmir

rb10 wrote: »

They still could have just sold ex-HBOS branches and customers, keeping the other HBOS assets. In the same way as they are selling ex-Lloyds TSB branches and customers whilst keeping all other ex-Lloyds TSB assets.

LGB chose the branches to sell based on an assessment of the type of customer they wanted to keep.

Lloyds had to create a viable stand alone bank that was self supporting. While meeting the demands of the EU regulators. So was a more complex operation than you suggest. As is a mixture of current accounts, loans, mortgages and deposits.

opinions4u

I think it's pretty clear that the rather large bit of the bank that sunk HBOS was commercial and international.

The retail bank had, in the main, a modern branch network with prime locations alongside market growth.

Took Lloyds 6 months to conduct a review of HBOS's mortgage lending book. At the end it was revealed that around a 30% was outside Lloyds own risk criteria, i.e. too high.

That was the outcome of the review. Hardly surprising as Lloyds TSB barely touched BTL or sub-prime. But the quality of the Halifax branded mortgage book (which included BoS branch mortgages) was seen to be better than that of Lloyds TSB / C&G.

Whistleblower Moore springs to mind as well.

I wasn't aware of the bloke when I worked for HBOS but a lot of the things he wanted to do with risk in the retail business were implemented. The irony is that risk in the retail business wasn't the problem. Risk elsewhere in HBOS was. So even if he'd been retained duff decisions in other parts of the firm would still have sunk them.

I am told that the HBOS unsecured lending underwriting models are now used across LBG and the mortgage underwriting system is certainly used in the Lloyds TSB and C&G brands (known because I was a contractor on the project that did the donkey work and plugging it in to the branches).

HBOS was a basket case. No argument. But the branch network, retail call centres and web sites that retail customers interface with everyday? A successful and profitable business.

Thrugelmir

opinions4u wrote: »

That was the outcome of the review. Hardly surprising as Lloyds TSB barely touched BTL or sub-prime. But the quality of the Halifax branded mortgage book (which included BoS branch mortgages) was seen to be better than that of Lloyds TSB / C&G.

Unsure how self cert can be considered better quality debt.

I heard Paul Moore speak a couple of years ago. Fascinating insight to the HBOS culture. A bank that wasn't run by bankers that's one thing for sure.

HBOS's results are published as a subsidiary company within Lloyds annual accounts. So there's no hiding the poor performance of the bank post 2007. For the the year ends December 2001 to 2012 combined. HBOS didn't actually make a net profit.

Jaycee_Dove

As per my earlier posts I thought all went well. They DID (supposedly) close my ISA, reopen it at my current branch with a new number and my statement shows I paid no penalty.

So the poster earlier told they MUST take penalties to transfer an ISA. Not true. Argue it out. You do not need to lose a penny.

They also gave me a date to close my current account at the branch where it was opened (the one being sold) and open it at the branch where I live (which is staying with Lloyds).

All went smoothly. Got new cheque book, card, all money transferred on the due date and all direct debits transferred to the new account.

Had forgotten about the whole thing - until today I get a letter telling me that one of my accounts is being transferred to TSB and the others are staying.

You guessed it, the one being transferred (!) is the one they closed (supposedly) and transferred all its content and direct debits to th new account that is staying with Lloyds and that I have been using happily now without issue since the 'transfer'.

So how are they transferring to TSB an ex account with nothing in it???

System

The bailout element is irrelevant.

They were told that they couldn't keep Bank of Scotland and LTSB Scotland; they bundled the latter (with established banking licence) and bolted on the C&G branches they were closing with some LTSB branches to fill in the gaps.

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Lloyds had to create a viable stand alone bank that was self supporting. While meeting the demands of the EU regulators. So was a more complex operation than you suggest. As is a mixture of current accounts, loans, mortgages and deposits.

opinions4u

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Unsure how self cert can be considered better quality debt.

Most of the self cert stuff was in TMB, not Halifax branded.

I heard Paul Moore speak a couple of years ago. Fascinating insight to the HBOS culture. A bank that wasn't run by bankers that's one thing for sure.

Crosby emailed everybody in the Halifax plc after the "merger of equals" with BoS, justifying it by saying it gives a great opportunity to diversify away from property exposure which Halifax was, through its building society heritage, inevitably exposed to. He then grew the asset size of the bank by expanding lending to property developers and jumping into new mortgage markets which Halifax would never have touched with a barge pole.

HBOS's results are published as a subsidiary company within Lloyds annual accounts. So there's no hiding the poor performance of the bank post 2007. For the the year ends December 2001 to 2012 combined. HBOS didn't actually make a net profit.

The myriad of accounting, write offs and bad debt in LBG is virtually impossible to unwind in the accounts. From 2009 to 2012 the HBOS accounts don't include the retail business. It's effectively a cess pit for the run off of toxic assets. Half the staff of LBG still have HBOS contracts (albeit somewhat different to those in place five years ago).

Some of the loss making HBOS stuff was also shunted over to the Lloyds TSB wholesale business and P&L. This saved them a mint in corporation tax that would otherwise of been due.

Don't get me wrong. I know that the overall HBOS party was a disaster, not least for the recent economic crash or the 40,000 LBG workers made redundant. But it wasn't a disaster because of the branch network, or the ordinary everyday cards, loans, savings and mortgages that you, me and most others reading these pages have.

The bank that the ordinary bloke does business with was seen by those running LBG as the bank to keep. Carving off a chunk of Lloyds TSB made more sense to them.