Halifax has responded to the increasing use of smartphones in the UK with the launch its Mobile Banking app for the most popular smartphone platforms. The new app enables customers to access and manage their money whilst on the move, and can help them find nearby ATMs or branches. Two years ago less than 10% [...]
Today Halifax has launched a new Junior Stocks & Shares ISA, which will enable customers to top up and value their investment online. The new ISA will seek to track the performance of the FTSE 100 Index, and requires a minimum opening balance of £20. Halifax Savings and Investment Director Simon Kenyon described the new [...]
UK savers remain committed to their Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs), research from Halifax shows. Across the country, the average cash ISA balance currently stands at £8,505, or one-third of national average pre-tax annual earnings (£27,235). However, of the 30 regions surveyed, the top 22 for ISA balances are clustered in southern England, with residents of [...]
Halifax has surprised the savings market with the launch of the Halifax Savers Prize Draw. The scheme offers the chance of monthly cash prizes of £100 up to £100,000 to those with balances of £5,000 or more across a range of accounts offered by bank. The inaugural prize draw will take place in December, when [...]
The Halifax brand shows signs of emerging from a difficult phase as Lloyds Banking Group launches a colleague-based advertising campaign with the tag “Halifax ‘the people who give you extra’”. The Halifax Community Choir made an appearance on yesterday’s X Factor talent show as the lender attempts to build on its past strengths and move [...]
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has plans to follow its long-awaited report into failures at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) with a report into the near-collapse of HBOS. Failures at HBOS have so far resulted in an FSA enforcement investigation which is on going. However, in a recent letter to Andrew Tyrie MP, chairman [...]
New research from the Halifax has revealed that children in Harpenden have the highest savings in the country, with an average of £3,046 compared to the national average of just £1,296. Greater London dominates the top 10 towns for children’s savings, with eight of the top 10 spots located in the capital city. Only top-placed [...]
Lloyds Banking Group is to shed 15,000 jobs worldwide. The group intends to deliver £1.5 billion of annual savings by 2014 through “better end-to-end processes and IT platforms, a delayered management structure and simpler legal structure”. Cost savings should enable an additional £2 billion of investment over the period 2011 to 2014, focused as follows: [...]
Lloyds Banking Group has reached a voluntary agreement with the Financial Services Authority regarding a customer contact programme for certain of its Halifax mortgage customers. The bank will be writing to borrowers who received a Halifax mortgage offer between 20th September 2004 and 16th September 2007, and still held that mortgage in January 2009. According [...]
Halifax, the UK’s largest mortgage lender, has announced that it is to entice new mortgage customers with the offer a £500 towards gas and electricity bills. The sum can be claimed within six months of a mortgage completing, and comes after the UK suffered its harshest winter for decades at the end of 2009 and [...]
Halifax has launched the Halifax Clarity card, which aims to cut the cost of travel money for holidaymakers. The card comes with no foreign exchange fees on transactions including all purchases and cash withdrawals abroad. According to the lender, over 30 million Britons still change sterling for their currency of destination in advance of travelling, [...]
Lloyds Banking Group could be facing substantial losses over the collapse of Kilmartin Holdings. The Scottish property developer has been placed in administration with debts to HBOS in the region of £500 million. Kilmartin built a reputation as a major UK developer, working on projects across the country including Wynyard Business Park in Teeside and [...]
Financial products analyst, Defaqto, is convinced that larger banks and building societies are increasingly focusing their sales efforts on existing customers, seeking to cater for all their financial needs. The firm’s banking specialist, David Black, comments: “We’ve already seen banks focusing their unsecured lending on existing customers but now there is the beginning of a [...]
A new report from CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) warns lenders that they should be focusing their attention on the quality of the UK commercial properties against which loans were secured during the last few years. The study, entitled “UK Commercial Real Estate Debt – a Two-Tier Market”, claims over half of the outstanding debt is [...]
Shareholders of Lloyds Banking Group are taking legal action against Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling. Lloyds Action Now spokeswoman and former BBC Watchdog presenter, Alice Beer, says the group is proposing to ask the High Court to establish whether Mr King and Mr Darling have acted beyond [...]
At the height of the financial crisis the Bank of England was forced to prop up Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and HBOS with loans totalling £61.6 billion. The emergency funding was needed during October and November of 2008 to maintain the stability of the UK financial system and “prevent a loss of confidence spreading [...]
Halifax and Bank of Scotland are introducing new charges for current account customers and withdrawing interest payment on accounts that are in credit. From 6th December, the banks will apply flat charges of £1 per day for agreed overdrafts of up to £2,500 and £2 a day for agreements over £2,500. For those with unarranged [...]
Reuters has reported that the future of Lloyds Banking Group, the banking giant formed by the hurried takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB, may be in jeopardy. The news agency has stated that a ruling by the EU Commission could see the forced break-up of the bank resulting in the total or partial sale of [...]
