Lloyds Banking Group is preparing to retire the Halifax brand after 173 years, in a move that would end one of the best-known names on Britain’s high street. Industry sources said new account applications through Halifax’s digital platforms are expected to stop on July 1, with the group expected to confirm the plan this summer.
By October, Halifax is set to stop accepting new customers altogether, before existing account holders are gradually moved to Lloyds Bank under a phased migration programme. Account numbers are expected to remain unchanged during the transition, and customers who hold accounts with both Halifax and Lloyds will still benefit from separate Financial Services Compensation Scheme protection limits because of the group’s corporate structure.
The change would mark the latest step in a wider reshaping of the group’s retail operation. Lloyds Banking Group owns Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland, and the three brands have long overlapped in the same markets across England and Wales. The planned retirement of Halifax would leave Lloyds as the main face of the business for many customers who have used the historic brand for decades.
That shift follows a February announcement that the group would close 95 branches across its three banking brands, including 31 Halifax branches, leaving 610 branches nationwide. The closures reflected a continuing pullback from the high street across the banking sector, as more customers move to digital channels and lenders cut costs by reducing their branch networks.
There is also a clear tension in the way Lloyds has previously talked about its brands and the direction it is now taking. In 2011, former chief executive António Horta-Osório said the group would keep the different brands because customers were very different in their attitudes, a view that helped explain why Halifax and Lloyds were maintained as separate identities for so long. Now the historic Halifax name is being readied for absorption into Lloyds Bank, even as the group says account numbers will stay the same and the transition will be managed in stages.
Bank of Scotland will not be affected by the changes. The restructuring does not include the brand because it remains the group’s primary banking operation north of the border, leaving Lloyds and Halifax as the two brands most directly caught up in the shift. For Halifax customers, the question is no longer whether the brand will change, but how quickly the familiar name will disappear from the front line of everyday banking.
