1979 National Girobank

Girobank was a British public sector financial institution founded in 1968 by the General Post Office. It started life as the National Giro but went through several name changes, becoming National Girobank, then Girobank Plc (latterly trading as Alliance & Leicester Giro), before merging into Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank (now part of Santander Corporate Banking) in 2003.

info gleaned from Wikipedia

1984 commercial for Midland Bank Free Banking!!!.

Midland Bank Plc was one of the Big Four banking groups in the United Kingdom for most of the 20th century. It is now part of HSBC. The bank was founded as the Birmingham and Midland Bank in Union Street, Birmingham, England in August 1836. It expanded in the Midlands, absorbing many local banks, and merged with the Central Bank of London Ltd in 1891, becoming the London City and Midland Bank. After a period of nationwide expansion, including the acquisition of many smaller banks, the name Midland Bank Ltd was adopted in 1923. By 1934 it was the largest deposit bank in the world. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but in 1992 it was taken over by HSBC Holdings plc.

info gleaned from Wikipedia

Prudential – I want to be a Brain Surgeon commercial featuring Jake Wood of East Enders fame.

Established in 1848, today Prudential plc is an international financial services company with a product range including personal banking, insurance, pensions and retail investments, institutional fund management and property investments.

In the UK we are a leading life and pensions provider with around seven million customers.

M&G was acquired by Prudential in 1999. It is the Group’s UK and European fund manager, responsible for managing £290 billion (as at 31 December 2009).

In Asia, we are the leading European life insurer with life and fund management operations in 13 countries serving some seven million customers.

In the US, we own Jackson National Life, a leading life insurance company, and has almost three million policies and contracts in force.

Advert for Legal & General from 1977.

Legal & General was formed by Sergeant John Adams and five other lawyers in June 1836 in a Chancery Lane coffee shop. Originally called the New Law Life Assurance Society, the society was restricted to those in the legal profession. The name was changed to Legal & General Life Assurance Society to reflect that policies were available to the general public but with share ownership restricted to those in the legal profession.

The group expanded in the UK and soon began to acquire overseas life assurance companies, purchasing a pensions business from the Metropolitan Life Assurance Company of New York in the 1930s.

In 1956 Life business was set up in Australia.

The society became a wholly owned division of Legal & General Group plc in the 1970s.

Info gleaned from Wikipedia

National Westminster Bank Plc, commonly known as NatWest, is a retail bank in the United Kingdom that has been part of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc since 2000. It was established in 1968 by the merger of National Provincial Bank (established 1833 as National Provincial Bank of England) and Westminster Bank (established 1834 as London County and Westminster Bank). Traditionally considered one of the Big Four clearing banks, NatWest has a large network of 1,600 branches and 3,400 cash machines across Great Britain and offers 24-hour Actionline telephone and online banking services. Today it has more than 7.5 million personal customers and 850,000 small business accounts. In Northern Ireland it operates through its Ulster Bank subsidiary.

Info gleaned from Wikipedia

Access Your Flexible Friend 80s

Access is a defunct credit card, originally introduced in the United Kingdom in 1972 by a consortium of National Westminster Bank, Midland Bank (now HSBC), Lloyds Bank (now Lloyds TSB), and The Royal Bank of Scotland, as a rival to the established Barclaycard (VISA). It was also issued in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland by Ulster Bank, a subsidiary of NatWest, Northern Bank, then a subsidiary of Midland; and Bank of Ireland, which was unconnected to the founder banks. The card scheme was run from Southend-on-Sea in Essex, by the Joint Credit Card Company Limited. It participated in the Eurocard/MasterCard systems. Europay International SA has since been taken over by MasterCard International itself.

One of the early slogans was Your flexible friend (which was featured in an episode of Mr. Bean); another slogan which featured in a television advertisement was Does you does, or does you don’t take Access? (sung to the tune of “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby”), accompanied by an animated Access and his friend Money (a pound sign); yet another slogan was It takes the waiting out of wanting. Access merged with the international credit card brand MasterCard in 1996. Some businesses still advertise as accepting the Access card as old signage has not been removed. The brand is considered nostalgic in the United Kingdom, in a similar manner to the former Midland Bank griffin logo.

Info gleaned from Wikipedia

1974 commercial for TSB

1992 advert for TSB Bank

1992 commercial for Nationwide Building Society.

Nationwide Building Society is a British building society, that is, as of 2009, the largest in the world. It has its headquarters in Swindon, England, and maintains a significant administration centre in Northampton. It is the only UK building society to clear its own cheques. Until mid-2009, when it announced the withdrawal of the service, it had been the only UK financial institution to offer completely fee-free transactions (both electronic and cash withdrawals) worldwide with its VISA debit cards. Nationwide was by far the largest British building society that did not convert to a bank in the wave of demutalisations that occurred from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. As of 2008, it is larger than all the other remaining British building societies combined, measured by total assets. It is a member of the Building Societies Association.

Nationwide Building Society provides financial services both directly, and through approximately 750 branches and 200 agencies. Nationwide is a major provider of both mortgages and savings in the UK, as well as personal banking and commercial lending. Nationwide.co.uk is the main website and sells most products and has around 2.5 million monthly visitors and 1.6 million active internet bankers. It also has a Sponsorship website at nationwidefootball.co.uk which replaced the previous Sponsored by You website on 7 January 2009.

The Society’s origins lie in Wiltshire (1846), Northampton (1848) and within the co-operative movement in London (1883). Over a hundred mergers later — most notably the merger between the Nationwide and the Anglia Building Society in 1987 — they are now the UK’s second largest mortgage lender and savings provider. More significantly, it is the largest building society in the world and committed to staying mutual. The society is keen to emphasise that it does not have shareholders, it has members.

In August 2007 the Society merged with Portman Building Society, creating a mutual body with assets of more than £160bn.

In the financial crisis of 2007–2009, the Nationwide has acted to safeguard the mutual sector, acquiring the ailing Cheshire and Derbyshire building societies in September 2008 and the Dunfermline Building Society on 30 March 2009. No member votes were taken, and no windfall benefit were given to society members. The Derbyshire, Cheshire and Dunfermline brand names will continue as separate trading arms of the Nationwide group.

1991 commercial for Allied Dunbar.

Allied Dunbar was a large British insurance company. In its early years as Hambro Life Assurance it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. However it was acquired by the Zurich Financial Services in 1998.

History

The Company was founded by Lord Joffe, Sir Sydney Lipworth and Sir Mark Weinberg who set up its headquarters in Swindon town centre in 1970 under the name ‘Hambro Life Assurance’.  It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1975. 

The company expanded its financial adviser operations during the late 70′s and early 80′s to become ‘Allied Hambro’ in 1984, finally changing to ‘Allied Dunbar’ in 1985 when it purchased purchased Dunbar & Co., a small private bank, and following the acquisition by BAT Industries.  It was bought out by Zurich Financial Services in 1998 and its direct sales force became the Zurich Advice Network (ZAN) in 2001.

In 2005 and following changes in industry regulation ZAN evolved into a stand-alone limited entity known as Openwork – a directly authorised multi-tied financial distribution network.

^{Info gleaned from Wikipedia}