The Co-operative Bank is the winner in the race to enter into ‘exclusive’ negotiations with Lloyds TSB to buy 632 of their branches, industry experts recently reported.
With the terms of the sale still needing ironing out, a spokesman from Lloyds said the personal and business bank account provider was hoping to finalise the handover by April of next year. If negotiations break down between now and that date, Lloyds will float the massive package on the stock market – a package that includes £83 billion in mortgages and deposits and some 5.5 million banking customers.
The Co-op stands to win big in the deal, as its UK branch network will triple in size to nearly 950 if the deal is finalised. The bidding for the Lloyds branches was an oddly low-key one, by all accounts, with the mutual’s main competition for the deal coming from start-up outfit NBNK.
The Co-Op’s new market share of current accounts would rise to in excess of 6 per cent in the UK, resulting in the creation of a High Street banking provider reminiscent of the former Abbey National and the nearly matching Nationwide, the UK’s largest building society.
The mutual is determined to dramatically extend its banking operation on the basis of offering ‘ethical alternatives’ to High Street lenders such as Lloyds. The Co-Op seems to have plenty of wind in its sails these days, as this summer saw it take over Britannia’s branches, and this past October the banking provider launched a scheme of offering £200 for customers to switch their account to the mutual, luring in large quantities of new customers.