The FTSE 100 lender, which also owns Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland and Scottish Widows, is reported to be drawing up plans to wind down Halifax as a standalone consumer-facing brand, with existing customers gradually migrated across to Lloyds Bank.
The transition is expected to begin on July 1, when customers will no longer be able to open new Halifax accounts through the app or website. By October, Halifax will cease taking on new-to-bank customers entirely.
A Lloyds Banking Group spokesperson told The Sun: "We regularly look at the role our brands play in supporting our customers. Our banking customers can already use any Lloyds, Halifax or Bank of Scotland branch, and see any of their products and services in any of their apps — there are no changes for our customers today."
What It Means for Halifax Bank Customers
For existing Halifax customers, the group has indicated that any transition would be phased and that account numbers would remain unchanged.
Customers who hold accounts with both Halifax and Lloyds will continue to benefit from separate Financial Services Compensation Scheme protection limits due to the group's corporate structure. Current account holders are not expected to face major administrative disruption during the transition.
Bank of Scotland will not be affected by the changes. The Scottish banking brand remains outside the scope of the restructuring as it is the group's primary banking operation north of the border.
173 Years of Halifax Banking History
The Halifax brand's roots stretch back to 1853, when the Halifax Permanent Benefit Building and Investment Society was founded above a coffee house in the Yorkshire mill town that gave it its name.
Halifax demutualised and launched on the stock market in 1997, creating 7.5 million new shareholders. Former building society members were given a minimum of 200 free shares if they had £100 or more in an account, landing them windfalls of at least £1,469.
Halifax merged with the Bank of Scotland in 2001 to form HBOS, before being absorbed into Lloyds Banking Group during the emergency rescue of the financial crisis in January 2009. It has since operated as a trading division of Bank of Scotland.
Halifax Following TSB to the Brand Scrapheap
Halifax could join TSB in disappearing from the high street. TSB has been a brand name in Britain for 216 years but is expected to go after Santander's £2.65 billion acquisition of the bank. Santander is gearing up to axe the TSB name and run the combined businesses under the name Santander UK.
One broker said: "Halifax disappearing from the high street feels like the closing of another chapter in ordinary British life. Banks may see this as streamlining, but customers will see it as another familiar name vanishing from towns that have already lost too many branches, too many counters and too much personal service."
Halifax Bank Branch Closures Already Under Way
The shake-up lands against a backdrop of accelerating physical retrenchment. The group has already confirmed plans for a fresh round of Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland branch closures running through 2026 and into 2027, affecting dozens of locations across the country.
Earlier in 2026, Lloyds confirmed a further 95 sites would shut between May 2026 and March 2027 — 53 Lloyds branches, 31 Halifax and 11 Bank of Scotland — leaving just 610 open compared to around 1,500 in 2015.
The BTU union, which represents 17,000 Lloyds employees, described the closures as the "final nail in the coffin of branch banking."
