Halifax (bank)

Halifax (previously known as Halifax Building Society and colloquially known as The Halifax) is a British banking brand operating as a trading division of Bank of Scotland, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group. It is named after the town of Halifax, West Yorkshire, where it was founded as a building society in 1853. By 1913 it had developed into the UK's largest building society and continued to grow and prosper and maintained this position within the UK until 1997 when it demutualised. In 1996, it became Halifax plc, a public limited company which was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 2001, Halifax plc merged with The Governor and Company of the Bank of Scotland, forming HBOS. In 2006, the HBOS Group Reorganisation Act 2006 legally transferred the assets and liabilities of the Halifax chain to Bank of Scotland. That bank, originally established by an act of Parliament, the Bank of Scotland Act 1695 (c. 88 (S)), became a standard plc, with Halifax becoming a division of Bank of Scotland. A takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB was approved by the Court of Session on 12 January 2009, and on 19 January 2009, Bank of Scotland, including Halifax, formally became part of Lloyds Banking Group. In July 2026, it was announced that the Halifax brand would be phased out, with customers transferring to Lloyds Bank. The bank closed to new customers on 1 July 2026.