 Capital Bank Logo (1997-2006) | |
| Type | Public company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Finance, Banking |
| Founded | 1945 |
| Fate | Assets transferred to Bank of Scotland (2007) |
| Successor | Bank of Scotland |
| Headquarters | Chester |
| Total assets | £21.3 billion (2006) |
| Owner | HBOS plc |
Capital Bank plc was a subsidiary bank of the Bank of Scotland and HBOS. Its head offices were located in Chester, England. Its main products were leasing, installment credit, and mortgages. In the late 20th century, it became Chester's largest employer. [1]
The bank was founded in a hotel room in Chester by Sydney Alfred Jones as North West Securities in 1945. [1] In 1958 North West Securities was purchased by the Bank of Scotland as the latter expanded into consumer credit. North West Securities continued to grow in size, reaching £1.3 billion in assets in 1987 and, with Bank of Scotland exercising greater control, it became a public limited company in 1989. [2] North West Securities was also renamed North West Securities Bank around this time [3] and, in the late 20th century, it became Chester's largest employer. [1] It also provided financial support to Chester Cathedral. [4]
In 1997 the bank was renamed Capital Bank plc and moved to its new headquarters at Capital House, (now Churchill House), the former Western Command headquarters in Handbridge, Chester. [5] The building was heavily modified and updated during this time with the concrete pillar façade being added along with the Bridge House building. [6] Capital Bank became part of the HBOS Group when Bank and Scotland and Halifax merged in 2001. Capital Bank continued to grow its corporate banking activity until 2006, when assets totalled almost £22 billion. [7] In the same year the HBOS Group Reorganisation Act 2006 was passed through the UK Parliament. This allowed the HBOS Group, which included other financial institutions and banks to consolidate Halifax plc, Capital Bank plc, and HBOS Treasury Services plc into one company, Bank of Scotland plc. [8] The vehicle leasing operation of Capital Bank was subsequently absorbed into Bank of Scotland Dealer Finance ('BOSDF'). [9]
Some Capital Bank subsidiaries, including the mortgage lender, The Mortgage Business plc which held approximately £9 billion in mortgage assets, continued to operate as a separate company until the 2008 recession. The Mortgage Business issued no new mortgages after 2008 and only manages already issued mortgages. [10] [11]
Capital House was retained as offices for Bank of Scotland; when Lloyds acquired HBOS, Capital House was no longer needed owing to Lloyds having offices at Charterhall Drive, Chester. After vacating the site in 2010, Lloyds sold the former Capital Bank buildings to the University of Chester in 2015. [12]
The Bank of Scotland plc is a commercial and clearing bank based in Scotland and is part of the Lloyds Banking Group. The bank was established by the Parliament of Scotland in 1695 to develop Scotland's trade with other countries, and aimed to create a stable banking system in the Kingdom of Scotland.
Halifax is a British banking brand operating as a trading division of Bank of Scotland, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group.
NatWest Group plc is a British banking and insurance holding company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The group operates a wide variety of banking brands offering personal and business banking, private banking, investment banking, insurance and corporate finance. In the United Kingdom, its main subsidiary companies are National Westminster Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest Markets and Coutts. The group issues banknotes in Scotland and Northern Ireland; as of 2014, the Royal Bank of Scotland was the only bank in the UK to continue to print £1 notes.
Sainsbury's Bank plc is a British bank wholly owned by Sainsbury's, a national supermarket chain in the United Kingdom. The bank began trading on 19 February 1997 as a joint venture between J Sainsbury plc and Bank of Scotland. Sainsbury's took full ownership of the bank in January 2014.
Lloyds Bank plc is a British retail and commercial bank with branches across England and Wales. It has traditionally been considered one of the "Big Four" clearing banks. Lloyds Bank is the largest retail bank in Britain, and has an extensive network of branches and ATMs in England and Wales and offers 24-hour telephone and online banking services.
The Trustee Savings Bank (TSB) was a British financial institution. Trustee savings banks originated to accept savings deposits from those with moderate means. Their shares were not traded on the stock market but, unlike mutually held building societies, depositors had no voting rights; nor did they have the power to direct the financial and managerial goals of the organisation. Directors were appointed as trustees on a voluntary basis. The first trustee savings bank was established by Rev. Henry Duncan of Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire for his poorest parishioners in 1810, with its sole purpose being to serve the local people in the community. Between 1970 and 1985, the various trustee savings banks in the United Kingdom were amalgamated into a single institution named TSB Group plc, which was floated on the London Stock Exchange. In 1995, the TSB merged with Lloyds Bank to form Lloyds TSB, at that point the largest bank in the UK by market share and the second-largest by market capitalisation.
Tesco Personal Finance plc, trading as Tesco Bank, is a British retail bank which was formed in July 1997, and which has been wholly owned by Tesco plc since 2008. The bank was formed as part of a 50:50 joint venture between The Royal Bank of Scotland and Tesco, the largest supermarket in the United Kingdom.
Intelligent Finance (IF) is a UK offset bank, a division of Bank of Scotland plc which is part of Lloyds Banking Group. It was established as a division of Halifax plc in 1999 by Jim Spowart, who helped establish other direct financial services firms including Direct Line.
Birmingham Midshires is an online trading name of Bank of Scotland plc. It is headquartered at Pendeford Business Park, Wolverhampton. It previously had 67 branches throughout England and Wales. Previously, Birmingham Midshires was a building society, known as the Birmingham Midshires Building Society.
The HBOS Group Reorganisation Act 2006 is a local Act of Parliament, passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in June 2006. The aim of the act was to provide HBOS plc, a banking and insurance group in the UK, the legal authority to reorganise its subsidiaries into a simplified structure. It came into effect on 17 September 2007.
HBOS plc was a banking and insurance company in the United Kingdom, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Lloyds Banking Group, having been taken over in January 2009. It was the holding company for Bank of Scotland plc, which operated the Bank of Scotland and Halifax brands in the UK, as well as HBOS Australia and HBOS Insurance & Investment Group Limited, the group's insurance division.
In the period September 2007 to December 2009, during the events now widely known as the Global Financial Crisis, the UK government enacted a number of financial interventions in support of the UK banking sector and four UK banks in particular.
Lloyds Banking Group is a British financial institution formed through the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in 2009. It is one of the UK's largest financial services organisations, with 30 million customers and 65,000 employees. Lloyds Bank was founded in 1765 but the wider Group's heritage extends over 320 years, dating back to the founding of the Bank of Scotland by the Parliament of Scotland in 1695.
Landmark Mortgages Limited, formerly Northern Rock plc and later NRAM plc, is a British asset holding and management company which was split away from the Northern Rock bank in 2010. It was publicly owned through the British Government's UK Asset Resolution following Northern Rock's nationalisation in 2008 until NRAM plc was sold to Cerberus Capital Management in 2016. The company is closed to new business.
UK Asset Resolution (UKAR) is a British financial services holding company with headquarters in the West Yorkshire village of Crossflatts. It was established in October 2010 as a bad bank to hold the two run-off elements, Bradford & Bingley and NRAM plc, of the two nationalised banks in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008.
TSB Bank plc is a retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom and a subsidiary of Sabadell Group.
Somers Limited is an investment holding company based in Hamilton, Bermuda. Its shares are traded on the Bermuda Stock Exchange.
Norwest Corporation was a banking and financial services company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. In 1998, it merged with Wells Fargo & Co. and since that time has operated under the Wells Fargo name.
Churchill House, formerly known as Capital House, is an historic building in Handbridge which currently forms the centre of the Queen's Park Campus of the University of Chester.
Norwest Holst is strongly tipped to have won the £10 million contract to build the third phase of office accommodation for North West Securities Bank