>> Click here for the full list of branches being sold by Lloyds Banking Group
By Simon Watkins
If you had been with your bank for years it might be annoying to find you had to go through new security checks to prove your identity before you could open a new account or take a loan.
But that is exactly what faces customers of Lloyds whose branch is being sold to Co-operative Group but who wish to stay with the bank.
Lloyds has agreed to sell 632 branches to Co-op to meet EC competition requirements. Details are still being negotiated, but if all goes according to plan the sale will take place next year.
Five million customers of Lloyds and its Cheltenham & Gloucester division will be affected – and if they do nothing they will become Co-op customers.
Those who do not want to move will have to close their Co-op account and open a new account with Lloyds. But under the terms of the transfer required by Brussels, Lloyds will have to act as if it had never seen these customers before.
‘We will have to pretend we do not know them,’ a spokeswoman for Lloyds confirmed. ‘And in fact we won’t know them as we will have handed over all the information we hold on them.’
Lloyds is not allowed to try to keep customers. Offering to short-circuit the usual bureaucracy of opening a new account would put Lloyds in breach of the Brussels ruling.
The same challenges, on a smaller scale, are being faced by Royal Bank of Scotland, which is transferring about 1.8 million customers in 311 RBS branches in England and seven NatWest branches in Scotland to Santander, also under an EC ruling.
The easy solution for refusenik customers is to open a new account at a branch not being transferred while they are still a customer. The process should be quick and easy, though a bank spokesman could not comment. If it were to happen on a large scale, Brussels’ demands for certain numbers of customer transfers would not be met.
Tags: Brussels, Cheltenham & Gloucester, Co-operative Group, EC, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest, RBS, Santander
This post has been commented 7 times
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January 22nd, 2012 at 2:06 pmLloyds customers face new security checks to prove identity « FMWF - Lloyds Share Price | Lloyds Share Price says:
[...] Follow this link: Lloyds customers face new security checks to prove identity « FMWF [...]
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January 23rd, 2012 at 1:29 pmBeryll Boyland says:
Have been loyal satisfied customer of Lloyds since 1971 — howcome Brussels can tell me where to bank??
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January 23rd, 2012 at 4:12 pmNigelAT says:
Many customers will stay with Lloyds. Therefore closing branches(i.e.buildings)will not reduce customer numbers and their market share of business will not be substantially changed. Co-op may find 632 buildings with few or no customers.
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January 23rd, 2012 at 6:33 pmPatrick Carroll says:
So, to meet EU competition rules, I am to lose my local bank branch that I can walk to in a few minutes, & will have to drive & pay to park to get to my next nearest – just where’s the logic in that. Thanks a bunch EU bureaucrats – I bet you have a bank branch conveniently in your office building to save you having even walk outside to get to it!
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January 24th, 2012 at 5:38 pmtom smyth says:
NigelAT misses the point. The accounts move with the branch – currently there seems to be no option. Also, I have found that as well as all Scottish Branches and some English an Welsh branch Intelligent Finance is also to be sold.
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January 25th, 2012 at 1:23 pmWayne says:
Having being a customer of the big banks, I changed to teh Co-op and its the best bank. You Llyods customers are going to experience customer service the way it should be. Co-op is an ethical bank too and not one of the greedy big four. It’s focus it’s it’s members (you) not profits.
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January 31st, 2012 at 6:51 pmTH says:
Poorly researched article. The author should have read up on the precedent of what’s happening with the RBS sale to Santander first. To clarify – if your branch of Lloyds is one that’s being sold, your account will go to the Co-operative Bank. Your branch *WILL* still remain open, but will just become a branch of the Co-operative Bank instead. You *CAN* stay with Lloyds TSB if you want to, but would have to transfer your account to a branch that wasn’t being sold. You *CAN* do that before the transfer goes through, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the Co-operative Bank if you prefer not to. So saying ‘Those who do not want to move will have to close their Co-op account and open a new account with Lloyds. But under the terms of the transfer required by Brussels, Lloyds will have to act as if it had never seen these customers before’ is simply not true. If you chose to move your account to a branch of Lloyds that isn’t being sold before your account is transferred to the Co-operative Bank, then none of this scaremongering from the author applies.