Halifax to open branches in Scotland

sheff-spud

Agree - Halifax is a trading stytle (brand) of Bank of Scotland plc.

Why LBG doesn't just allow Halifax/BoS customers to use either branch band is beyond me, since the systems are all the same.

Interesting though, BoS current accounts look more like Lloyds ones than those on offer from the Halifax.

Thrugelmir

opinions4u wrote: »

Partly, I'd guess.

You've also got thousands of Halifax customers "marooned" north of the border after LBG killed off the brand there. This will have triggered thousands of complaints, especially in relation to certain accounts they can't service by phone or online.

There is demand there. Site the branches well and you can also attack competitors without cannibalising too any BoS customers.

Given Lloyds dominance in retail banking in England. Perhaps it's their primary route of expanding the domestic market. From yesterdays news, appears that they are retracting totally from a further 10 countries.

pqrdef

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Does this have anything to do with losing the TSB branches in the demerger?

My guess is that BoS will become more Lloyds-like and will end up just being the Scottish name of Lloyds.

JacksterD

It seems like Lloyds are in a bit of a tough situation. Previously they two banks operating across the whole of the UK - one being Lloyds TSB and the other being Halifax and Bank of Scotland.

Now they're in a situation where Lloyds customers will purely be based in England and unable to transact in any Scottish branches should they, say, move house, and vice versa for Bank of Scotland customers - even though both banks seem to be offering increasingly convergent products.

I'd hazard a guess that long term you'll find Lloyds and Bank of Scotland will end up being like HBOS used to be - the products will be the same and the systems will be the same. The fact that they're looking at opening Halifax branches in Scotland would suggest that, again long term, they may plan on splitting up Halifax and Bank of Scotland.

Of course I could be totally wrong.

System

The only way they could totally split Halifax from BOS would be to move Halifax customers to the Lloyds banking licence.

At the moment, it's a semi-detached relationship between BOS and Halifax.

EarthBoy

Heng_Leng wrote: »

The only way they could totally split Halifax from BOS would be to move Halifax customers to the Lloyds banking licence. .

It's not the only way. They could set up Halifax as a bank in its own right again with its own banking licence, like it had until 17 September 2007 when it was abolished and became simply a trading name of Bank of Scotland.

Halifax plc was abolished/merged with Bank of Scotland under a private Act of Parliament, -the HBOS Group Reorganisation Act 2006. Lloyds Banking Group could pay for another private Act of Parliament to separate them again.