‘As sure as night follows day, low life shysters will use dumping of Halifax brand as way to try to con customers out of their life savings’
Just as PM-in-waiting Andy Burnham puts the north at the heart of his odds-on premiership, Lloyds chooses now to consign one of the region’s famous banking names to the dustbin of history.
Why now? The buzzword was “simplification”, or in other words saving owner Lloyds Banking Group a chunk of money. And of course it needs to save a few quid given it raked a colossal £6.7billion profit in 2025.
It’s telling how little the Halifax was mentioned in the group’s near 300 page last annual report. This from a lender that catapulted singing bank teller Howard Brown to fame in the 2000s with its famous TV adverts.
A bank set-up specifically for working people. Those with spare cash could deposit it and receive interest. Others could then borrow funds to buy or build a house.
How times change. After becoming part of HBOS, it needed a £20billion taxpayer rescue in the 2008 banking crisis and is now part of a group worth £64billion.
What’s in it for customers? Essentially, nothing. They could of course vote with their feet and go elsewhere, but Lloyds will be conscious of how ‘sticky’ most of us are when it comes to our current account provider.
Lloyds is keen to stress it will be a hassle free transfer for customers. And, given they keep the same account details, that should be the case. Account numbers and sort codes will stay the same as they are now.
Your money is “safe and remains exactly where it is”, it stressed, while adding “we will never ask customers to move money, transfer funds or share security details as part of this change. If anyone contacts a customer asking them to do this, it is a scam.”
That’s crucial as you can be sure as night follows day that a hideous breed of low life shysters will use the change as way to try to con customers out of their life savings.
It’s why branches are so important. If you’re worried for whatever reason, checking by seeing the whites of the eyes of a bank employer over the counter is worth its weight in gold.
Most banks haven’t seen it that way, which is why hugely profitable Lloyds recently announced another 79 new branch closures, 75 of which will close in 2026 and four in 2027. The latest wave includes 48 Halifax.
And Halifax may not be the last famous banking name to disappear. There are reports Spain’s Santander could dump the TSB name following its takeover, a brand that dates back 216 years when the Trustee Savings Bank was set-up by a Scottish clergyman.
Other once staple names of our high streets that have vanished include Midland Bank (part of HSBC) and Abbey National (Santander).
Time change, and hitherto famous brands, are consigned to the past. But when the main reason it’s done is to make more money for owners – with customers an afterthought – it make it that bit harder to accept.
