Everything about Halifax Building Society totally explained
Halifax is a
commercial bank in the
United Kingdom, one of the trading names of the
Bank of Scotland plc which is part of the
HBOS Group. Prior to 1997, it was the UK's largest
building society, known as the
Halifax Building Society. The Halifax is the UK's largest provider of residential
mortgages and saving accounts. It is named after the town of
Halifax, West Yorkshire where it retains its headquarters. Its slogan is "Always giving you extra".
On
17 September 2007, 'Halifax' became a trading name of
Bank of Scotland plc as part of reorganisation of the HBOS Group caused by the
HBOS Group Reorganisation Act 2006.
History
Formation
The Halifax was formed in 1853 as the
The Halifax Permanent Benefit Building and Investment Society. The idea was thought up in a meeting room situated above The Old Cock Inn close to the original Building Society building. Like all early building societies, the purpose of the Society was for the mutual benefit of local working people. Investors with surplus cash would invest in the society to receive interest, and borrowers could access loans to fund the purchase of a house.
Unlike many UK building societies which grew large by acquisitions and mergers, the Society choose an organic form of growth, and proceeded to open branches throughout the UK. By 1913, it was the largest building society in the UK. The first office in
London opened in 1924; and the first offices in
Scotland in 1928.
Halifax Building Society
In 1928, it merged with
Halifax Equitable Building Society, then the second largest building society and was renamed
Halifax Building Society. The Society was now five times larger than its nearest rival, with assets of £47 million.
A new Head Office was built at Trinity Road, Halifax in 1973. The distinguished diamond shaped building was used on marketing material during the 1980s and 90s. Underneath the building is a specially constructed deedstore which is used to store property
deeds for an annual charge of £10. It is computerised and filled with
gas to prevent
fire. Its importance has diminished in recent years because property data is now kept on a central database kept by
Her Majesty's Land Registry.
Diversification
The Society continued to grow in size throughout the 20th century, remaining the UK's largest building society. The deregulation of the financial services industry in the 1980s, saw the passing of the
Building Societies Act 1986 which allowed societies greater financial freedoms, and diversification into other markets. Accordingly the Halifax acquired an estate agents to complement its mortgage business. It also expanded by offering
current accounts and
credit cards, traditionally services offered by commercial banks.
Demutalisation
The 1986 Act also allowed building societies to demutualise, and become
public limited companies instead of mutually owned organisations, owned by the customers who borrowed and saved with the society. Although the
Abbey National demutualised in 1989, the process wasn't repeated until the late 1990s, when most of the large societies announced demutalisation plans. In 1995, the Halifax announced it was to merge with the Leeds Permanent Building Society and convert to a plc. The Halifax floated on the
London Stock Exchange on
June 2,
1997. Over 7.5 million customers of the Society became shareholders of the new bank, the largest extension of shareholders in UK history.
Halifax plc
As Halifax plc, the new bank was the fifth largest in the UK in terms of market capitalisation. Further expansion took place with the 1996 acquisition of Clerical Medical Fund Managers, a UK life insurance company. In 1999, the Halifax acquired the
Birmingham Midshires Building Society and
ComparetheLoan
. In 2000, Halifax established
Intelligent Finance, a telephone and internet based bank.
HBOS
In 2001, a wave of consolidation in the UK banking market led Halifax to agree a £10.8 billion merger with the
Bank of Scotland. The new group was named
Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) with headquarters in
Edinburgh, but retaining both Halifax and the Bank of Scotland as brand names. However in
Scotland, Halifax branches were amalgamated with the Bank of Scotland, and the Halifax brand is now only used for branding mortgages and savings products. Halifax branches in the rest of the UK use the Bank of Scotland brand for business banking. In 2006, the opposite occurred when the
Bank of Scotland (Ireland), HBOS's main retail bank in the Republic of Ireland, announced that it would be rebranding its retail business as Halifax, citing the Irish public's exposure to Halifax advertising on
ITV as among the reasons
(External Link). The Bank of Scotland name will be retaining for business banking.
In 2006, the
HBOS Group Reorganisation Act 2006 was passed. The aim of the Act was to simplify the corporate structure of HBOS. The Act was fully implemented on 17 September 2007 and the assets and liabilities of Halifax plc transferred to Bank of Scotland plc. The Halifax brand name will be retained as a trading style, but it no longer exists as a corporate entity.
Halifax Bank of Scotland saw shares dive nearly 20 percent at one point, on
March 19 2008, before recovering as the bank robustly denied rumors of liquidity problems that revived fears over the impact of the global credit crunch.
(External Link)Heads of major British banks met with the governor of the
Bank of England following days of market pressure on lenders' stocks. The
Bank of England told after the
March 20 2008-meeting that participants had "agreed to continue their close dialogue with the objective of restoring more orderly market conditions." The bank's statement steadied the share price of HBOS after falling steeply in early trading
March 19 2008.
(External Link)
TV adverts
Halifax pioneered an innovative approach to bank adverts in 2000, when it allowed its staff to star in adverts, singing popular songs with the words changed to reflect financial services products. Halifax worker
Howard Brown is the regular star of the adverts. Following the merger with the Bank of Scotland, this practice has continued, with the Bank of Scotland also allowing its staff to take part.
In December 2006, Natalie Webster and four other Halifax colleagues Richard Willoughby, Jilly Ellard, Nicola Roberts and Paul Dudley, flew to
Johannesburg to film the 'Halifax remix' of
Aretha Franklin's 'Think'. The advert has been on air since February 2007. Another advert filmed stars Thomas Yau from Leeds singing a version of
Herman's Hermits '
I'm into Something Good'. This advert has been on air since January 2008.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Halifax Building Society'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://halifax__bank.totallyexplained.com">Halifax (bank) Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
