How the Lloyds and RBS sell-offs will affect you

November 3, 2009 6:14 pm by Matthew Vincent

If you’re a customer of Lloyds TSB, Halifax, Cheltenham & Gloucester, Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest, Direct Line, or Churchill… then I wouldn’t blame you for feeling confused by today’s news about bank sell-offs.

What will actually happen is this:

Lloyds Banking Group is going to sell off its Cheltenham & Gloucester branches, its Intelligent Finance subsidiary and its TSB brand, to satisfy European state aid rules. So if you have an account or a policy through any of these businesses, you’ll end up as a customer of another company.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is going to have to sell off it RBS branches in England and Wales and its NatWest branches in Scotland, to comply with the state-aid rules. It will also have to sell its Direct Line, Churchill and Privilege insurance operations.  So again, if that’s where you currently bank or buy your insurance, you will have to assess what a new owner can offer you, or transfer back to RBS or another company.

But don’t worry – nothing will change right now. Lloyds and RBS have been given four years to complete the sell-offs.

If you want to know what difference it will ultimately make to your finances, read our consumer guide here.

Posted in Banking, Consumer affairs, Current accounts, Insurance, Mortgages, Savings |
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The FT’s Money blog is a forum for the latest news and insights from the UK’s personal finance scene. Matthew Vincent, the editor of FT Money and his team of reporters will upload their views and insights on what’s happening in the industry and how this affects people’s finances.

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Lucy Warwick-Ching is the FT’s new Money Online Editor and has been a UK Companies reporter covering tobacco, pubs and leisure companies as well as the deputy editor on House and Home.

Matthew Vincent is the FT’s Personal Finance Editor and was previously the editor of Investors Chronicle, where he also devised the award-winning online video The Market Programme, and produced the BBC-FT standalone magazine ‘How to be Better Off’. He presents the weekly FT Money Show audio podcast, and previously worked on the BBC TV programmes Short Change and Pound for Pound.

Alice Ross is deputy personal finance editor of FT Money. She specialises in pensions, investments and investment trusts. Alice joined FT Money in April 2008 - prior to that she was deputy editor at Money Management magazine.

Ellen Kelleher has been a personal finance reporter in the UK for close to four years. Before arriving in London, she worked in the FT's New York bureau where she covered the insurance sector.

Steve Lodge is a personal finance reporter on FT Money specialising in savings.


Josephine Cumbo has written about all aspects of personal finance but currently specialises in insurance. She also covered company news for FT.com. Prior to working at the FT she was a news reporter for the ABC.

Tanya Powley is a personal finance reporter on FT Money specialising in mortgages and the housing market. Tanya joined FT Money in November 2009 after working in Australia covering personal finance for the Australian Financial Review and its sister magazine Asset. Prior to that, Tanya wrote about mortgages for UK trade newspaper Money Marketing.

Jonathan Eley is editor of Investors Chronicle, and has been with the title for ten years. Before that he worked for newswires and trade journals in London, New York and Hong Kong.

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