The Lifestream of Jon Moss

Banks and brands

May 28 2009, 10:01pm

We heard the news yesterday that the European banking giant Santander plans to phase out the British household financial names of Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley. I thought the reaction from the public was very telling and you could argue that we'd have seen a very different reaction prior to the financial disaster we've all experienced. I think there's so much less trust in the financial brands and the organisations that have come out of the financial debacle are few and far between. Santander have been one of the few according to many informed commentators.Banks have always suffered from little or poor brand loyalty. The banks that have stuck their necks out from a brand perspective have succeeded (First Direct, IF spring to mind immediately) the rest of the banking brands don't mean anything and you could argue in the current climate that's just fine. We're looking for our banks to be safe and solid not fancy dan brands with aspirations way above their ability.We're looking for safety and scale as consumers in our banks right now. And it's very, very sad that many of our smaller financial institutions are suffering so badly - in particular the mutuals - and you could argue that it's the combination of the market and their lending/borrowing policies. I'm no financial expert. But what I do know is there will be a trend to consolidation on the brand front with the financial institutions as they hunker down to deal with the global firestorm they are still struggling to sort out. We're all now looking for safety and solidity where our cash is concerned and the bigger and more credible brand, the better. So when Santander are looking at getting rid of some of the most iconic brands in the UK - B&B bowler hat men, for instance - we don't bat an eyelid. And it's interesting. Some commentators have said it's a sad day with the global march of a big brand wiping out smaller, local brands. But the reality is that Santander is a big, successful, well managed business that has struck at the right time when confidence in the banking sector is low and using the weakness of the sector to snap up rivals.I'm not entirely convinced that UK consumers know that much about Santander, but they're behaving like a huge brand and given they plan to spend £12m on the rebranding exercise we'll know an awful lot more about them very, very quickly.