Charlie Nunn has just gone on the record to explain just why Lloyds dumped the 173 year old brand
After 173 years on the British high street, Halifax is being folded into the Lloyds brand. Ask Charlie Nunn why, and the answer he gives first isn't cost, or branch closures, or the group's messy HBOS-era inheritance. It's artificial intelligence.
"Increasingly our customers are looking to research their products through large language models, through the Internet, and are looking for the best products that meet their needs," the Lloyds Banking Group chief executive said on the Big Boss Interview podcast. "How you reach them and how you access them became more and more about having a really strong brand that joins up for our customers."
It's a striking explanation for retiring one of the mortgage market's most recognisable names, and worth treating with a little scepticism. Lloyds confirmed the phase-out on 1 July, with Halifax-branded signage starting to come down at 190 of the group's 531 branches from early 2027 and no branch closures directly tied to the switch. But reports of the plan had been circulating since May, tied explicitly to Nunn's five-year strategy reveal at the end of July – long before this podcast interview aired. The infrastructure for merging the brands, including shared branch access and standardised staff uniforms, was already in place well over a year ago. AI may be the framing Nunn now reaches for, but the decision looks to have been in motion regardless.
What isn't in doubt is the practical detail for brokers. Halifax Intermediaries will become Lloyds Intermediaries from early 2027, with the same systems, logins and BDM relationships continuing throughout. Esther Dijkstra, managing director for intermediaries at Lloyds Banking Group, said the change signals "long-term commitment to the intermediary market" and gives brokers access to the Lloyds back book for the first time. From 7 July, the Lloyds Premier Current Account mortgage discount extends to Halifax mortgages arranged through intermediaries, and brokers gain the ability to write product transfer business on existing Lloyds mortgages – something they couldn't do before.
Aaron Strutt, product director at Trinity Financial, called it "the end of an era" for a lender with a strong reputation in the mortgage market, while noting the brand "may well have been a bit outdated." Sort codes, account numbers and rates stay unchanged for existing customers throughout.
So did AI kill Halifax? Only in the sense that it's a convenient story for a brand consolidation Lloyds was always going to make. What actually happens next matters more for the intermediary market than the reasoning behind it: whether Lloyds Intermediaries delivers on the commitments to procurement fees, named contacts and faster document turnaround it has promised, and whether folding two of the country's biggest mortgage books into one brand changes how brokers get deals through in practice.
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