One of Britain’s largest banking names set to vanish from the High Street after almost 220 years

The TSB name is set to be phased out across Britain’s high streets after the lender was taken over by Santander, reports claim. 

TSB has been a brand name in Britain for more than 200 years but is set to undergo a radical shakeup after Santander’s £2.65billion acquisition of the bank completed last week. 

Santander is gearing up to axe the TSB name and run the combined businesses under the name Santander UK, according to the Financial Times. 

Santander has previously said the takeover would generate approximately £400million in cost savings. 

Santander is mulling an additional £100million in cost savings, according to the FT. Branch closures, job cuts and the consolidation of IT systems could be on the cards, but nothing has been announced. 

TSB employs 5,000 staff and has approximately 175 branches across Britain.  

TSB has launched an ‘enhanced listening’ exercise to help employees cope with the uncertainty of the takeover amid fears of job losses and redundancies according to company filings. 

A spokesman for Santander told This is Money: ‘TSB is a strong consumer banking brand and we recognise the value it has built with customers and within the UK market over a long time. 

‘We will consider carefully how to make the most of the brand value in our model long term and expect no immediate changes.’

No alterations will be made to current accounts, cards, or products for at least 12 months. 

Santander has already been undertaking an extensive overhaul of its business. In July 2025 the bank announced it had cut more than 2,000 jobs and warned more redundancies could be on the cards. 

In July last year, Mike Regnier, chief executive of Santander in the UK, said the year-on-year drop in its workforce came as part of a ‘simplification and automation’ drive as it ramped up the use of technology and as more customers switched to online banking. 

In January, Santander unveiled plans to close 44 further branches, putting 291 jobs at risk. Last year, it announced plans to close 95, or a quarter, of its branches which had 750 workers.

Ministers have criticised the mass closure of bank branches, arguing it restricts access to cash for elderly and vulnerable people. 

TSB was sold by its Spanish owner Sabadell to rival Santander in a deal worth £2.65billion agreed last summer.

The deal will see the combined group become the country’s third biggest bank for current accounts and fourth for mortgages, with nearly 28million customers.

It is the latest confirmed deal in the banking sector, after Nationwide recently announced it had transferred nearly all of Clydesdale’s operations, trading as Virgin Money. 

More than 200 years of history at TSB 

The Trustees’ Savings Bank (TSB) can be traced back to a tiny hamlet in Dumfriesshire in 1810. 

Since 1810 TSB has gone through a number of iterations before merging with Lloyds Bank in 1995 to form Lloyds TSB. 

It began when the Reverend Henry Duncan, minister of Ruthwell, opened what has been claimed to be the world’s first savings bank. It was based on business principles, paying interest on its investors’ modest savings. 

By 1951, TSBs had combined deposits of more than £1billion. The savings bank movement flourished across Britain with a large number of local organisations until they were brought together in the 1970s.

This was followed by a stock exchange flotation in 1986 and the creation of TSB Group. That move was contested by the Scottish National Party which opposed what it saw as ‘privatisation’.

In time, the organisation merged with Lloyds Bank in 1995 to form Lloyds TSB, the bank which has now been split up. In 1995 TSB branches disappeared from the high street after being merged with Lloyds Bank.

Amid the global financial crisis, Lloyds was bailed out by the government in 2008 following its disastrous rescue of HBOS and ordered by the European Commission to sell 600-plus branches. 

In 2012, the Co-operative secured a deal with Lloyds Banking Group to take over 632 Lloyds TSB and Cheltenham & Gloucester branches. Approximately 4.8million Lloyds customers would have transferred to the Co-op. 

Lloyds’ plan to sell the branches to the Co-operative collapsed in April 2013. On September 9 2013, Lloyds launched TSB as a separate, standalone business with 632 branches.

Lloyds sold its remaining stake in TSB to Spanish organisation Sabadell in 2015 in a deal worth £1.7billion. 

Last year, it was announced that Edinburgh-based TSB was set to be bought by Santander, after 10 years with rival Spanish owner Sabadell.