Lloyds Bank exits Ireland

Lloyds Bank has today confirmed that its banking licence which enables the company to operate in Ireland will be handed back to the authorities. The company is no longer taking on new business in Ireland as the operation has been a disaster over the last few years. The company has lost billions of pounds in Ireland and has finally decided to call it a day. The assets of the operation in question are around £25 billion and will be transferred to the UK parent company and controlled from there. Whether loans will be wound down in the short to medium term or carry on as normal remains to be seen.

The last few months have seen a massive change in the makeup of the Lloyds Bank group with a number of offshoots sold on and a variety of banking branches close down. The company is returning to basics at a time when the UK banking sector is still feeling the pinch. Whether the company will look to expand once the operations have been merged together and the UK, and worldwide, economy recovers remains to be seen.

As with Royal Bank of Scotland, the Lloyds Bank which will exit the UK economic downturn will be very different to the one the majority of us are familiar with.