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Lloyds Banking Group has announced it is axing the Halifax brand, scrubbing the 173-year-old former building society’s name from UK high streets.
The group will stop opening new accounts under the Halifax brand and kickstart a process of shifting existing accounts to Lloyds branding over the coming days.
The group, which has 531 branches overall, will start dismantling signage at the 190 Halifax-branded sites from early 2027. No branches will be closed as a result of the changeover.
The decision, first reported in May, has proved controversial among loyal customers and people who live in the West Yorkshire town the chain is named after. It follows a review of Lloyds’ branding strategy that began earlier this spring.
The group has operated under three brands – Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland – since January 2009, when the financial crisis and a series of bad business decisions brought the combined Halifax-Bank of Scotland (HBOS) group to its knees.
The overhaul means Lloyds will be the group’s sole brand in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from next year, although Bank of Scotland will be retained for customers in Scotland.
The bank has assured customers that sort codes and account numbers will not be affected by the brand migration plan.
However, axing Halifax would mean getting rid of one of the most recognisable and historic lenders on the UK high street. The former building society traces its roots to the mid-1800s, when housing shortages and overcrowding prompted the founding of the Halifax Permanent Benefit Building Society, which allowed members to earn interest on deposits and borrow funds to buy or build their own home.
It later grew into a UK-wide lender and by 1928 held the title as the largest building society of its kind in the world. Decades later, Thatcher-era changes led to the lender’s demutualisation in the mid-1990s, turning Halifax into listed bank before merging with Bank of Scotland in 2001.
However, by 2008 a string of bad business decisions put HBOS at risk of collapse, resulting in a government-brokered deal for Lloyds to rescue the group with the help of £20bn in taxpayer cash.
The HBOS brand was later tarnished by a notorious banking scandal, as it emerged that managers at its Reading branch were pushing small business customers into failure and stripping them of assets.
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But despite the controversy and bailouts, Lloyds may still have to contend with pushback from loyal customers and people from Halifax, who have banked with the former building society for decades.
Lloyds’ consumer relations boss, Jas Singh, said: “As Halifax changes to Lloyds, our Halifax customers will keep everything they know and love today – the same fantastic app design, the same friendly faces in our branches – even the same sort code and account number. But as Lloyds customers, they’ll get the best innovation and experiences we offer.
“Our Lloyds customers are already benefiting from a significant investment into propositions like Club Lloyds, Lloyds Premier, Lloyds Ultra and Lloyds Rewards – and now we’re really excited that Halifax customers can bank on Lloyds for more.”
The news comes weeks before the Lloyds chief executive, Charlie Nunn, is due to announce a strategic plan for the group alongside half-year results at the end of July. His current five-year plan, which will come to a close in December, involved a big shift towards digital and mobile banking.
Speculation over a potential shake-up began last year, when Nunn rolled out a policy allowing customers to use any of the group’s Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Lloyds branches, regardless of which lender they held accounts with. That move involved the rollout of standardised uniforms for branch staff, who started covering shifts for colleagues across the group’s other brands.
