Another High Street Rebrand

scottishtv · Sat 21 Jul, 2012 18.13

This is getting a bit confusing then.

I don't really know why I care so much, but I'm wondering if customers will still be able to service Halifax accounts in BoS branches? or will they be moved onto BoS products? Won't it be odd for a Scottish customer who has a Halifax current account to have to service it at via a fully BoS-branded branch network.

Also, if they do keep Halifax elsewhere in the UK, it would be a bit weird.

You'll have in Scotland:
TSB (Co-Op), Bank of Scotland (Lloyds product range)

Elsewhere:
TSB (Co-op), Lloyds (Lloyds product range), Halifax (Lloyds Banking Group, but off doing it's own thing?)

DVB Cornwall · Sat 21 Jul, 2012 19.35

The current product portfolios are almost identical between BoS and HFX so switching brands for customers of both of them wont be an issue. Introducing some Lloyds products to both might be attractive too.

I'm not iclined to try it now, but up to 3 years ago, on a previous version of online banking, HFX customers could log on to BoS online and service their accounts on the BoS site without difficulty.

scottishtv · Sat 21 Jul, 2012 20.47

DVB Cornwall wrote:The current product portfolios are almost identical between BoS and HFX so switching brands for customers of both of them wont be an issue. Introducing some Lloyds products to both might be attractive too.

No, the last two pages of this thread has revealed that Lloyds will have no branches in Scotland after the sale to Co-op (as stated on Lloyds TSB website) and that BoS products are no longer aligned with Halifax but instead with Lloyds. Looking at what's offered on the websites this seems to be the case

Halifax branch finder also returns no results for locations in Scotland nowadays.

Pete · Sat 21 Jul, 2012 21.16

I've not seen a Halifax logo anywhere in Scotland for quite a long time - hideous TV ads excluded (and those mostly on non-regional channels)

eoin · Sat 21 Jul, 2012 23.27

Pete wrote:Is Halifax to be destroyed altogether then? What is happening to Halifax branches in England atm?

From the Lloyds 2011 Annual Report:

In Retail, we have started to revitalise the Halifax brand to be a leading challenger brand in UK retail banking. We aim to deliver a simple, efficient and fair customer experience, innovative products such as the ISA Promise or Savers Prize Draw, and to be a value-for-money leader.

Retail is committed to a multi‑brand strategy operating relationship brands for Lloyds TSB and Bank of Scotland with a challenger brand for Halifax and other tactical brands in the portfolio. Through our strategy, Retail can reach more customers with more distinct and considered proposals and product offerings.

So, an alignment of the BoS and Lloyds offering, as Hermes said, with Halifax being kept separate and repositioned as a "challenger brand", a term which is not really expanded upon in the report, other than in the quote above.

WillPS · Sun 22 Jul, 2012 00.06

I visited Halifax on Wednesday shopping for an account for a business. Halifax were the least helpful - they could submit information for Lloyds to call us back (and as yet they have not).

DVB Cornwall wrote:Post Project Verde ... the forced disposal of the 'TSB' brand, Lloyds will be a brand throughout the UK. Halifax will remain in England and Wales, and Bank of Scotland will remain North of the border. There might be a couple of BoS branches exceptionally in London though, mainly for Political reasons.

Halifax and BoS are relatively strong brands in their respective territories.

As far as I can tell, Lloyds/HBOS have already closed down BoS in England and Wales, certainly the only branches I know of closed in January 2011 and a search on their branch finder returns nothing for 'London'.

scottishtv wrote:This is getting a bit confusing then.

I don't really know why I care so much, but I'm wondering if customers will still be able to service Halifax accounts in BoS branches? or will they be moved onto BoS products? Won't it be odd for a Scottish customer who has a Halifax current account to have to service it at via a fully BoS-branded branch network.

Also, if they do keep Halifax elsewhere in the UK, it would be a bit weird.

You'll have in Scotland:
TSB (Co-Op), Bank of Scotland (Lloyds product range)

Elsewhere:
TSB (Co-op), Lloyds (Lloyds product range), Halifax (Lloyds Banking Group, but off doing it's own thing?)

It's more complicated than that. For an indefinite period TSB (under the Co-operative's ownership) will continue to run the Lloyds TSB system. Lloyds Banking Group have 2 infrastructures, their own and HBOS'. By the sounds of things, Halifax and BOS are going to be moved to the Lloyds TSB system also!

What would make sense from (where I'm sitting) is for Lloyds Banking Group to move all the non-TSB Lloyds customers, staff and branches over to HBOS infrastructure (which I believe is relatively modern), then sell the Lloyds TSB network (sans Lloyds customers) whole for the Co-op to deal with. Of course, that would mean Lloyds wouldn't get what I imagine will be a proposterous sum of money indefinitely.

Philip · Sun 22 Jul, 2012 00.16

How bloody confusing.

scottishtv · Sun 22 Jul, 2012 00.25

Turns out Halifax disappearing from Scotland was on the cards for a while: BBC News.

Oh well.

lukey · Sun 22 Jul, 2012 01.03

WillPS wrote:It's more complicated than that. For an indefinite period TSB (under the Co-operative's ownership) will continue to run the Lloyds TSB system. Lloyds Banking Group have 2 infrastructures, their own and HBOS'. By the sounds of things, Halifax and BOS are going to be moved to the Lloyds TSB system also!

I thought this was happening already? About a year ago, BOS adopted what I understand is a Lloyds anachronism - deposit/withdrawal slips. I happened to be in a branch on what I think was the first day of this, so there was a lot of expected chaos, things breaking, and people roaming the queues attempting to explain. About six months later, this disappeared, and when I mentioned it to the cashier, they said something about it only existing as a stopgap solution while they merged systems. I'm not going to pretend to know anything about either infrastructure, so not sure how superficial this 'merger' is!

On a slight tangent, going back to the early days of the HBOS merger, it was a bit poor as a customer. Again, there appeared to be a bit of trading down in infrastructure, and products were randomly doled out between BOS and Halifax, with some pretty miserable brand treatment. Getting a Halifax ISA with a passbook circa 2004 was a bit jarring.

WillPS · Sun 22 Jul, 2012 01.42

It may well have happened, lukey. On the Halifax side of things I haven't noticed any change yet, but clearly something is afoot.

eoin · Sun 22 Jul, 2012 11.30

WillPS wrote:It may well have happened, lukey. On the Halifax side of things I haven't noticed any change yet, but clearly something is afoot.

Sorry to ruin all the fun of the speculation, but it's all there in black and white in the annual report.

As at 31 December 2011, we had realised annual run-rate savings of £2,054 million from the Integration programme. A major part of the integration from an IT perspective was the migration of Halifax and Bank of Scotland customer accounts and data to the scaled Lloyds TSB platforms and this was successfully completed in the third quarter. This was an immense exercise involving the migration of approximately 30 million customer accounts and these platforms will now provide the foundation for the Group’s transformation plans