Abbey is the sixth largest bank within the UK. Its competitiveness as well as its drive to improve and expand its services have made it one of the UKs most popular banks today.
The History of Abbey Bank
Abbey was established first in 1849 with the National Freehold Land and Building Society. Then in 1944, the company became known as Abbey National when it merged with the Abbey Road Building Society. Its main premises were within a Baptist church in Kilburn up until 1932. Then the company moved to Baker Street in London where it stayed until 2002.
It was the 1970’s and 1980’s that really set Abbey National apart from the competition. Abbey quickly became known for innovation with which it tended to cause disruptive changes in the UK banking industry. For example, Abbey was the first banking organisation to use computerised systems for all of its client accounts and in the late 1970s new savings and chequeing accounts were introduced by Clive Thornton, the Chief General Manager at the time.
There were initial problems with these new types of accounts since, as a building society, Abbey National needed to find a bank that could help to clear cheque on accounts: legal restrictions limited the way in which building societies could handle cheques so Abby joined forces with the Co-operative bank and as time went on it became a full member of both APACS and BACS.
Abbey also made history in 1989 when it became the first building society to gain a public limited company status. In order to gain status and more customers, Abbey then focused on growth acquiring other financial organisations until in 1996 it merged with the National and Provisional Building Society, bringing them three million new customers.
It wasn’t until September 2003 when the bank changed its name to just “Abbey” and in 2004, Santander acquired the company. The Spanish financial group is the fifth largest international bank.
Abbey Services and Products
Abbey presently provide the following financial services to personal banking customers:
- Abbey Mortgages
- Abbey Loans
- Abbey Credit Cards
- Abbey Insurance
- Abbey Bank Accounts
- Abbey Savings & Investments
Today Abbey is one of the largest providers of mortgages and savings accounts within the UK and with over 700 branches situated throughout the country, it is not difficult to find Abbey in the high street.
Whilst Abbey’s main services include savings and mortgages, it also offer insurance, investments and competitive loan options.
Abbey offers online banking, which makes it simple for customers to check their various accountst, pay online bills and transfer money at any time of the day. Abbey also offers a variety of different bank accounts to suit people from all walks of life as well as a couple of credit card offers.
Although Abbey’s main customer base tends to be personal bankers, business banking services are available too. Abbey’s present business account is free to use unlike many other banks today.
Abbey has long been known for its innovations and competitiveness in the UK banking sector. It continues to grow in popularity and it is constantly looking into ways to expand and to improve its current services.