Lloyds Banking Group plc

Lloyds Banking Group plc is a British financial services company headquartered in London, the largest retail bank in the United Kingdom by customer base. It was formed in January 2009 when Lloyds TSB, whose own Lloyds Bank lineage traces to a Birmingham goldsmith-banker partnership founded in 1765, acquired HBOS, the troubled owner of Halifax and Bank of Scotland, in a rescue merger arranged amid the global financial crisis; the UK government took a large ownership stake as part of the deal and fully exited it by 2017. The group operates the Lloyds Bank, Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Scottish Widows brands, spanning retail banking, mortgages, insurance and wealth management. It remains one of the largest providers of mortgages and current accounts in the UK.