Bad News for MBNA Credit Card Holders

Razoo

British bank Lloyds has bought Bank of America's UK credit card division MBNA for £1.9 billion (the deal remains subject to approval by the regulator).

Lloyds is the bank that had to be rescued in 2008 by the British government with £20billion of state money during the global financial crisis.

Having witnessed Lloyds Bank destroy just about everything that was good about HBOS (Halifax) Bank, this has to be bad news for MBNA credit card holders.

I have an MBNA credit card that pays 1% cashback on everything. Anyone care to guess how long that will survive under Lloyds Bank's money-grubbing leadership?
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Razoo

System

Old news.

But seriously, did Halifax have anything good about it that's been lost?

EarthBoy

Razoo wrote: »

Having witnessed Lloyds Bank destroy just about everything that was good about HBOS (Halifax) Bank, this has to be bad news for MBNA credit card holders.

It was HBOS that ruined Lloyds, not the other way round. Lloyds was a good, well run bank, whilst HBOS was on the verge of going bust. Lloyds took over HBOS and crippled itself in the process.

quidsinquentin

Heng_Leng wrote: »

Old news.

But seriously, did Halifax have anything good about it that's been lost?

Yeah - being a building society.

PeacefulWaters

EarthBoy wrote: »

It was HBOS that ruined Lloyds, not the other way round. Lloyds was a good, well run bank, whilst HBOS was on the verge of going bust. Lloyds took over HBOS and crippled itself in the process.

It's something worth debating.

Little doubt that massive corporate and international losses at HBOS were responsible for the taxpayer bailout of Lloyds Banking Group.

But the HBOS retail business, including Halifax and Bank of Scotland branch networks, remained profitable while the rest of the empire collapsed dramatically.

Lloyds TSB is responsible for c80% of the massive PPI liabilities of the group. HBOS, despite a strong sales culture and significant mortgage market share, producing nothing like the level of mis-selling claims. The same is true now with packaged current accounts - in part because HBOS didn't offer them until 2007.

As a product innovator HBOS was always more at the races than the downright boring lloyds TSB, offering customers a more competitive range in most products,

I think it's also fair to say that those employees (and I know many) who were HBOS staff prior to the merger realised how good they'd had it when the more aggressive Lloyds HR approach was adopted by the combined business.

One thing Lloyds Banking Group has done is return an identity to Bank of Scotland.

Mr_Goodkat

quidsinquentin wrote: »

Yeah - being a building society.

The Halifax Building Society ceased to exist in 1995 when it merged with the Leeds Building Society and floated on the stock exchange as a bank. The merged Halifax and Leeds building societies under the name Halifax Bank then merged with the Bank of Scotland in 2001 creating HBOS which then was rescued by Lloyds and ultimately the tax payer post 2008 crash!

Mr_Goodkat

Razoo wrote: »

British bank Lloyds has bought Bank of America's UK credit card division MBNA for £1.9 billion (the deal remains subject to approval by the regulator).

Lloyds is the bank that had to be rescued in 2008 by the British government with £20billion of state money during the global financial crisis.

Having witnessed Lloyds Bank destroy just about everything that was good about HBOS (Halifax) Bank, this has to be bad news for MBNA credit card holders.

I have an MBNA credit card that pays 1% cashback on everything. Anyone care to guess how long that will survive under Lloyds Bank's money-grubbing leadership?
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Razoo

As has been said already on this thread this is old news.

The MBNA credit card business has been on sale for a long time so the purchase by Lloyds may well be a case of 'better the devil you know' than somebody like a venture capitalist taking control.

It seems that the MBNA brand will continue to exist and not be re-branded and as this needs approval from authorities there could even be consumer safeguards put in place such as commitment that balance transfers between MBNA and LBG products will continue to be allowed.

As for the future of of cashback cards especially ones that pay as much as 1% is likely to be short lived whoever the new owners of the MBNA brand were - I suspect they took the approach to maximise the sale price of the business they kept incentives in place to maintain their cardholder numbers.

I have a MBNA Rewards card that pays 1% Amex and 0.5% rewards plus the Everyday Amex for foreign use but these are part of a much wider credit card portfolio so I will hold whilst them whilst they continue to give these benefits but I wasn't expecting these to be forever whether MBNA remained in the possession of Bank of America, was sold to LBG or sold to AN Other!

System

quidsinquentin wrote: »

Yeah - being a building society.

It wasn't a building society (for years) prior to the shotgun wedding.
From a credit card perspective, it wasn't anything to write home about.

System

Mr_Goodkat wrote: »

The Halifax Building Society ceased to exist in 1995 when it merged with the Leeds Building Society and floated on the stock exchange as a bank. The merged Halifax and Leeds building societies under the name Halifax Bank then merged with the Bank of Scotland in 2001 creating HBOS which then was rescued by Lloyds and ultimately the tax payer post 2008 crash!

Halifax ceased to exist in 2007

jonesMUFCforever

Razoo wrote: »

British bank Lloyds has bought Bank of America's UK credit card division MBNA for £1.9 billion (the deal remains subject to approval by the regulator).

Lloyds is the bank that had to be rescued in 2008 by the British government with £20billion of state money during the global financial crisis.

Having witnessed Lloyds Bank destroy just about everything that was good about HBOS (Halifax) Bank, this has to be bad news for MBNA credit card holders.

I have an MBNA credit card that pays 1% cashback on everything. Anyone care to guess how long that will survive under Lloyds Bank's money-grubbing leadership?
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Razoo

What utter tosh!
If Lloyds had not been given authority to take over HBOS then it would have gone to the wall.

Razoo

Heng_Leng wrote: »

Old news.

Not 'old news', but 'ongoing news' as the deal hasn't been finalised yet.

But seriously, did Halifax have anything good about it that's been lost?

Yes, most everything.

IMHO Halifax was a very good bank offering innovative and market-leading products - until Lloyds got hold of it!
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Razoo