Newsflash: Lloyds TSB unveils HBOS takeover

[stugster]

Lloyds TSB has unveiled details of its £12.2bn takeover of HBOS, the UK's biggest mortgage lender.

The all-share deal values HBOS shares at 232p each, significantly more than Wednesday's closing price of 147.1p.

Effectively the buyout is a rescue deal as HBOS shares have plummeted in recent few days amid concerns for its future.

BBC NEWS | Business | Lloyds TSB unveils HBOS takeover

 

[Brian McIntosh]

I find it amazing that, just a year ago, HBOS shares were trading at over £11. What about all the people that bought shares in the rights issue just a few months ago? The whole irony here is, the safest place to have you nest egg right now, is Northern Rock! I can't keep track of all this shenanigans.

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

It's amazing the government is willing to dismiss any competition concerns on the basis that they want this deal done, surely because they could potentially have to bail another bank out if the deal doesn't go through.

I'm sure there will be many people taking a bath on investments held with HBOS. It is a sign of the times though and the people who I really feel sorry for are the employees because it's likely jobs will be shed to a fairly serious degree and branch closures are a certainty. I dont think most people will see any initial change though as these companies are so massive that it will take a while for integration to occur.

 

[Rehela]

Intelligent Finance in Livingston (call-centre , on-line arm of HBOS) is a considerable employer in this area, especially for part time, evening positions.
It had already announced it was scrapping certain types of mortgages,loans,accounts , etc just recently, hopefully things don't get much worse..

Regards, Rehela

Future Skills - Quality Consultancy and Training - Home

 

[Idea15]

The attached scan pretty much sums up my experience with HBOS. This is the mandatory letter we had to get the bank to issue to accompany the cashiers' cheque to our solicitor which was the deposit on our home. It's supposed to be an anti-fraud measure, but was so unacceptable that the solicitor refused to accept it. I had to then go back to the bank, on the last day they were open before the Christmas holiday, and ask a woman wearing pink fairy wings and sparkly deely-boppers to retype it using correct English. She thought the whole experience was funny and giggled the whole way through.

Oh, and um, there was the whole business of BOS refusing to grant me a basic, simple, current account after two years as a customer. All they would give me when I moved to the UK was the teenagers' "cash savings account" (I was 25 at the time) and after two years of residence and full time employment in a managerial position, they still refused to upgrade it or to let me discuss the reasons for their obstinance with my bank manager. I had to get my MP to intervene. Boy did they move fast after he got involved (ha),and they claimed it was an "error in the way my account had been set up." Aye right.

BOS? Buh-bye.

 

[stugster]

Did he not was of help to you then?

 

[Idea15]

And to think, I'm the one who has to pay to take a test to prove that I can speak English.

From a marketing perspective BoS has driven me up the wall for years with their "tartan and teeth" advertising campaigns, particularly the literally all-singing all-dancing musical adverts. The message they've been sending is that this bank is all about its employees, not its customers. Don't show me how your bank tellers can dance, show me what you can do for me and my money and my family. Show me that this is a bank I can relate to and trust to understand me. What in the name of the wee man does a bank teller banging his thighs and crooning "sexxy! Our interest rates are sooo sexxxy!" have to do with customers' everyday needs?

 

[andrewburnett]

The Bank of Scotland a fiend for life.

Bank of Scotland - banking with a capital W.

My experience of them has been so utterly utterly disgusting you wouldn't believe it. From racism toward my wife (who is German) to them not being in the slightest bit interested in helping me in any way shape or form to get business banking from them.

I have literally just come from the local branch of RBS where I now have a personal business banking manager who made me coffee and filled out all the necessary paperwork for me before wishing me a great weekend and telling me I'll have my account by Wednesday or Thursday next week.

If anyone is looking for business banking in Leith, just holler and I'll put you in touch with this absolute angel of business banking.

 

[Idea15]

I completely understand about the racism shown towards your wife and experienced quite a bit of it myself (I define that as harsh and unfair treatment based solely on one's country of birth and not one's actual current financial status). The UK banking system has a very interesting term for legalised discrimination and racism - it's called "the Data Protection Act".

 

[andrewburnett]

In this instance Heather it had nothing to do with data protection, but with the acvtivation of the cards for our joint account:

I called first and activated my card, answering a couple of questions about the balance and direct debits that were on the account - my answers were to the nearest £25 or so... not exact in the slightest. They activated my card immediately.

Next I said to the guy that I'd put my wife on to activate her card (bear in mind - joint account...) he told me she'd need to phone again as they can't activate two cards on the same call. Very well. My wife then phoned to activate her card - she was asked the same type of questions and was told that her answers were not precise enough. When she turned to me to ask what the exact figures were the woman on the other end of the phone said very abruptly to her that conferring was not allowed, she would have to activate the card in the branch - along with photgraphic ID and proof of address - and then hung up. (again JOINT account!!)

The only difference between my wife's answers and mine was the accent in which they were given.

It get's better, 6 months later and the new cards were issued, again my wife called to activate hers and was informed that due to the fact she had failed to supply them with correct answers last time she was now barred from activating ANY card on the phone, this bar could only be lifted in branch (of course they didn't bother to lift the bar as a matter of course when she had been forced to activate in branch due to THEIR racism)

I have spent over 10 hours complaining to the Bank Of Scotland about this and demanding an apology which they refuse to issue.

The Bank of Scotland is, in my experience, the worst bank on the planet, they have staff who just simply do not care, they have proceedures which ensure incompetence and are through and through the rudest, least helpful shower of c*nts you could possibly do business with.

(Excuse my pottyMouthedness, but in this instance that particular word fits like a tailored glove.)

Next week I shall be visiting their flagship branch to return every piece of junkmail they have ever sent me, the 1.5kgs of forms they gave me to fill out to open a business account and to tell them - in branch, very vocally that all my financial dealings are now with a competent bank which I am singing the praises of.

 

[Idea15]

Disgusting. Not surprising at all, but disgusting all the same.

After the third time they refused to upgrade me from the teenagers' cash account to a basic regular current account, I demanded an explanation. A supervisor came out from the hidden room in the back to inform me that that I should have been grateful to have the teenagers' cash account, because as a (spit spit) foreigner, normally all I would be given is a basic savings account with no debit card, no cheques, and several rounds of mandatory postal-only paperwork.

Can you imagine what it's like to have lived in a country for several years while constantly trying to build up a proper credit record with only a teenagers' cash account? Try getting a loan, a store card, or even joining a book club without a current account. You expect and tolerate it when you're just off the plane. Literally years later, when some snob is dishing out her own form of legal institutionalised discrimination to someone who probably made twice her income - well, let's just say I cheered the guy on the news who was arrested for punching a BoS teller.

 

[andrewburnett]

As a Scotsman I am embarrassed to have them using the word Scotland in their name.

As a Swissman (I'm dual national) I know what banks are supposed to do for you.

I wouldn't trust the Bank of Scotland to sit the right way round on the toilet.

Utter incompetence from staff training via internal procedures are passed directly, with charges, to the customer.

If any of us were to act like them we'd go out of business overnight, a fact I've shared with each and every one of their telemarketers who have tried to convince me to take a loan from them... (evidently they hadn't looked at my savings accounts prior to calling, further proof of them not being fit to run a coffee morning let alone a bank)

 

[Idea15]

What really got to me during my whole experience with BoS was at the time, I was working in a public sector organisation which bandied about the term "social exclusion", which experience has taught me is a mentality by which people are encouraged to blame society and not themselves for the stupid decisions they've made in life. Anyhoo. One of the services the organisation offered was a credit union which was open to anyone within certain postcodes who had never had bank accounts and had no consistent sources of income other than benefits.

One day I finally said to myself - wait a minute, what about my social exclusion? I work full time, I pay taxes, I'm responsible with my finances, and therefore I am not allowed to have a current account; but if I'd never worked a day in my life, the very company I work for would be bending over backwards to set me up with one.