Abbey
...ifying its offering to provide a range of easy to understand products and services. This initiative followed on from Abbey’s attempt at diversification into other financial products and markets that had resulted in substantial financial losses for the company, then trading as Abbey National plc. In the face of this, the company decided to relaunch itself, freshen up its image, and return to concentrating on what it has traditionally done best: providing financial services for people. The most important change involved taking a new, critical look at this over-complex market with the objective of becoming the UK’s leading personal financial services provider. As part of this process, in September 2003 the company relaunched itself, including simplifying its trading name from Abbey National to Abbey. Research highlighted when people talk about Abbey, they refer to them as ‘Abbey.’ It also signaled a change. Today, Abbey has 18 million customers, employs 27,000 staff and has an annual turnover of £3.5 billion. 2. A competitive market The UK financial services sector has become increasingly competitive as a result of several changes. Successive UK governments have looked to encourage competition in financial services so as to give customers a better deal. An important development in this area was the so-called Big Bang in 1986. This opened up competition between firms on the London Stock Exchange, and also developed competition for High Street banking services, with new firms becoming eligible to apply for licences to carry out banking activities. Thereafter, individual institutions could carry out a range of functions such as personal banking, insurance, and offering mortgages, and the traditional distinctions between banks, building societies and insurance companies became blurred. In particular, the Building Societies Act enabled (but did not require) building societies that had previously concentrated on offering savings and investment accounts and granting mortgages to provide a full range of banking services (e.g. current accounts, overdrafts, loans, provision of credit cards). Given this opportunity to become banks, many building societies changed their legal status. Previously many had been mutual benefit societies run on behalf of their members (people with investment accounts). Many became public limited companies with shares quoted on the London Stock Exchange. This enabled t...