Business Services Industry
Consolidation in British Banking Nullifies Early Promise of Competition.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, April, 2001
By Richard Northedge, Sunday Business, London Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Apr. 29--There used to be four big banks that dominated the high streets. Then, in the 1980s, competition arrived. Building societies moved beyond mortgages and savings books to offer current accounts and the full range of banking services, and the sleeping old Trustee Savings Bank and Girobank awakened to provide customers with a real choice. Foreign banks, supermarkets and internet banks added to the competition.
Then the tide turned. If Halifax and Bank of Scotland merge, and if Lloyds TSB wins its fight for Abbey National, we will return to five major high-street banks. Choice will be little better than the one that caused so much customer dissatisfaction before the...
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