Another High Street Rebrand

[Pete]

For a few months BoS regressed, again, with customers having to fill in withdrawal/deposit slips in the queue. I was told this was/is a Lloyds thing - is that even true?

Yes, we always used to have to fill in stupid bits of paper with Lloyds. If we dared not to we'd get grunted at by the cashier who'd then fill in the bit of paper and proceed to do fuck knows what on their bizarre ergonomic nightmare of a computer with the worlds smallest trackpad balanced on top of a bundle of wires.

This has finally been replaced with putting your debit card in the chip and pin machine but their systems still appear to be powered by steam. Internet banking won't let you have punctuation characters in your password for example.

I have no idea what the current status of the HBOS backend is, although I believe it was superior. Perhaps Lloyds, for whatever reason, are doing a morrisons?


On a related not, I find it amusing that 8 years after the merger, Abode are still using the Macromedia website templates.

[DVB Cornwall]

Re the HBOS England and Wales branches not transferring to TSB, a very few are, they will remain operating as an independent unit within Lloyds Banking Group. I suspect nothing will be done with them re integration until all threats of litigation over the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB disappear. The need to retain them in some semblance of an integral unit being necessary if the 2008 deal needs to be undone as a result of such action.

Having had accounts with Lloyds, Halifax and new Halifax, as far as I'm concerned the new iteration of Halifax online is by far the worst. A reversion to the now gone features of the previous version is long overdue.

[WillPS]

Which features have gone?

I don't think there's a real risk of any court requiring HBOS to be split off, is there? That would leave Lloyds with a similar number of branches to Yorkshire Bank!

[DVB Cornwall]

Features that have gone ....

Ability to fully manage accounts, including closure, interest payment changes, transferal of payments between accounts, proper statement creation and publication tools. Integration of Credit Cards seamlessly. Document archives.

[JAS84]

Which features have gone?

I don't think there's a real risk of any court requiring HBOS to be split off, is there? That would leave Lloyds with a similar number of branches to Yorkshire Bank!

And just to prove how small YB is, Yorkshire Bank isn't even that company's main trading name. Yorkshire Bank is part of Clydesdale Bank, I think they use the Clydesdale name in Scotland and Yorkshire in Northern England, with no presence at all down south (my soldier brother had to move banks because of that).

[WillPS]

Features that have gone ....

Ability to fully manage accounts, including closure, interest payment changes, transferal of payments between accounts, proper statement creation and publication tools. Integration of Credit Cards seamlessly. Document archives.

Can you not transfer using 'make a payment'?

[DVB Cornwall]

..Should have said transfer of Payment Mandates between accounts. Once set up, It could be used to make payments from any account. Now each payment mandate is linked to specific accounts.

[barcode]

Will poundstretchers ever fully rebrand all shops in there ownership? I know of plenty shops which are so run down you have to wonder why anyone goes inside them. Compare them to Home Bargain, B&M, poundland, poundworld, Home Discount UK

[DJDave]

Richard Kirk peacocks old chief executive wanted to do that when they made him theirs last year. He wanted to re-brand the other stores and refit plus open more and sort out the windows which have just stock stacked in front of most, and they said eerm no thanks and got rid of him. I did think why on earth did you take him on in the first place.

[thegeek]

Halifax and Bank of Scotland still use the same backend to their online banking.

Sometime between the HBOS merger and around 2005, I was moved from Bank of Scotland's online banking (didn't it have a funny name that was somehow based on their earlier Prestel efforts?) to a sort of merged HBOS thing. Sometime in 2005 I got fed up with the terrible ads with Howard, and closed all my accounts - but then later opened an ISA or credit card or something, and found that my BoS online account was still alive, and I could attach my new accounts to it. Even today I can still log in on the BoS website and access my Halifax accounts (and vice versa). It's not bad, as far as these things go.

Lloyds TSB's online banking, on the other hand, is absolutely terrible. When I saw that, if the merger had gone ahead, the Co-op would probably use the Lloyds system, I was filled with woe. Sort of glad that didn't go ahead.

[cwathen]

Will poundstretchers ever fully rebrand all shops in there ownership? I know of plenty shops which are so run down you have to wonder why anyone goes inside them. Compare them to Home Bargain, B&M, poundland, poundworld, Home Discount UK

Their ranging problems need some sorting out. Today, the aircon failed at work and I went out in search of some fans to stop us from melting until they got it fixed. Popped over the poundstretcher opposite and found that in the middle of the first decent summer we've had in the UK since 2007, they have absolutely no fans in stock and don't seem clear about when they will have any more in...but they do have an excellent range of heaters, which are all prominently displayed in prime floor space right in front of the doors!

Instead I walked a bit further on down to Wilkos where I may have paid a few quid more but got what I was looking for.

No doubt if the heating breaks down in the middle of December poundstretcher will start doing an excellent line in portable air coolers...