Trustee Savings Bank

The Trustee Savings Bank (or TSB as it is commonly known) is a British financial institution. It was renamed Lloyds TSB in 1995 and Lloyds Bank was then absorbed into Lloyds TSB Lloyds Bank shares being replaced with Lloyds TSB shares. Lloyds Bank effectively ceasing to exist after 1995 as anything other than a trading name. In 2012 it is due to be resurrected as a separate company by the Lloyds Banking Group under an agreement with the Co-operative Bank known as Project Verde. 632 high street branches of Lloyds TSB Bank and their customers will then transfer to the revived TSB brand, which is then due to be sold on to the Co-operative Group. The transfer is due to be completed by the end of 2013.

Historically the trustee savings banks specialised in accepting 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 (hence the name) on a voluntary basis. 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 (to HSBC, which had taken over the Midland Bank in 1992) by market capitalisation. In 2009, following its acquisition of HBOS, Lloyds TSB Group was renamed Lloyds Banking Group, although the TSB initials survive in the names of its retail subsidiaries, Lloyds TSB Bank and Lloyds TSB Scotland. In July 2012 it was announced that the TSB brand was to be resurrected by the Co-operative Bank who would acquire about 600 bank branches and their customers from Lloyds Banking Group. The transferred bank branches will trade under the TSB marque.

The first trustee savings bank was established by Reverend Henry Duncan of Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire for his poorest parishoners in 1810. Another form of savings bank in the United Kingdom is the National Savings Bank, originally known as the Post Office Savings Bank, which is 100% backed by HM Treasury.

The Government of Ireland Act 1920 separated the TSB after the partition of Ireland. From the 1970s onwards however, they followed a similar path of amalgamation to their UK counterparts, becoming, in 1992, a single entity which was purchased by Irish Life and Permanent in 2002.