Lloyds Bank- The Bank With A Difference
Lloyds Bank was one of the oldest banks in the United Kingdom and the first in Birmingham. Through a series of mergers, this bank has emerged as one of the four biggest banks in Amereica. The bank also does overseas business, such as in Brazil and New Zealand. The famous life insurance bank Lloyds Abbey Life is also owned by the Lloyds Bank. Here are some pointers related to some milestones in Llyods Banks stady progress towards banking leadership.
- The origins of Lloyds Bank stretch back to 1765.
- Over the years, Lloyds Bank expanded through a series of mergers, including the Wilts and Dorset Bank in 1914 and the Capital and Counties Bank in 1918.
- Overall, there have been some fifty takeovers, which the Lloyds Bank has made so far.
- Lloyds Bank (France) was formed in 1911. After this, Lloyds Bank acquires Paris-based Armstrong and Co. Eventually in 1955, Lloyds Bank bought fully ownership to become Lloyds Bank Europe.
- It was in 1988 that Lloyds Bank merges five of its business with the Abbey Life Insurance Company to create Lloyds Abbey Life.
- In 1995, the bioggest event in the Lloyds Bank took Place when Cheltenham & Gloucester joins the Lloyds Bank Group. Later this year, the Group merges with the TSB Group to form Lloyds TSB Group. This Association is today one of the largest forces in domestic banking in United Kingdom.
Lloyds TSB
In 1995, the Lloyds Bank merged with the Trustee Savings Bank, also known as TSB. With its head office in London, Lloyds TSB is the major player in the financial arena and the fifth largest bank headquartered in the United Kingdom by assets after HSBC Holdings, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays Bank, and HBOS. The main objective of this merger of the Lloyds TSB Group was to help poor parishioners save money for times of hardship.
- The Lloyds TSB has offices in 27 countries around the world.
- All its offices are located in all the financial hot spots of the world. This includes Dubai, Switzerland, the United States, Hong Kong and the Netherlands.
- Lloyds TSB Group has 27-million customers in both UK and abroad.
- The TSB association was formed for the smaller banks to join. This includes the formation of four TSB banks - TSB England and Wales; TSB Scotland; TSB Northern Ireland; and TSB Channel Islands.
Online Banking Solution by Lloyds Bank Group
The online banking is the preferred method of the majority of the Lloyds Bank customers. Its perfect online banking solution has changed the way people live and many are taking advantage of its convenience to perform time-consuming everyday tasks such as banking, shopping, and making travel arrangements.
Those customers who travel a lot and conduct business internationally find the online banking solution provided by this Bank rather valuable. However, there is a range of attractive services on offer by the bank for those as well who do not travel quite often. All the customers of Lloyds bank can simply log in to their account and transact business online without any risk or fear. Because of the innovative and advancing technologies the Lloyds bank has put into its online banking system, it has made the lives of its millions of customers in UK and abroad much easier.
- Using the online banking facility, customers can transfer funds, pay bills, monitor deposits, withdrawals and account balances in real time.
- The online banking of Lloyds Bank also allows its customers to download and print their financial statements.
- The customers also have the option to receive SMS alerts of all account changes.
- What is more, customers can also apply for loans and overdrafts right from the comfort of their home, office or library.
- The Bank also allows its customers to edit their personal records and contact details through the online banking services. All the customers have to do is to log in to their account and make the changes. The changes will come into effect within seconds.
International Services
- The Lloyds Bank allows their customers to relieve and make payments in Euros. This way, the customers no longer have to bother with changing currencies.
- The customers can also make the process of exchanging currencies less risky by setting up foreign currency accounts.
- Those customers of Lloyds Bank who trade abroad can also facilitate the process of sending and receiving money by using the International money mover services offered by the bank.
- The Lloyds Bank also offers for its customers a documentary letter of credit program. Using this program, the Lloyds Bank customers can save money and expedite payments. This way, they can help improve their cash flow.
- Lloyds Bank account holders do not have to pay any fee for most of these international services. All these services are free of charge.
Apart from these services, there are many other online banking services also that the Bank has designed for individuals and businesses.
Bank's Strategy And The Technical Challenges
At Lloyds Bank and its Group, the merger resulted in big changes in terms of its overall business strategy, which consequently had an impact on what the Bank was trying to achieve with the IT systems underlying that. The biggest change in the new technologies at Lloyds TSB has been in enabling the move towards being increasingly internet-based and self-service. As communication between IT and business has been less than perfect in the past, with a divide existing between the two in most businesses.
The Lloyds Bank has been trying to address this issue. It takes time to put the changes in place, but there has certainly been an improvement in the Lloyds Bank and its Group. There is now much more common understanding between IT and business. The reason why their ongoing strategies fit is that they have the right dialogue going on between all their divisions. The Lloyds Bank tries to ensure they deliver what is wanted, fit-for-purpose, in the timescales required. As per the CEO of the Lloyds Bank and Group, business today must be able to react much more quickly, and is the challenge of IT to find ways to achieve that.