Lloyds Bank ( Lloyds Banking)

Lloyds Bank plc is a British retail and commercial bank with branches across England and Wales. It has traditionally been considered one of the "Big Four" clearing banks. The Lloyds bank was founded in Birmingham in 1765. It expanded during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and took over a number of smaller banking companies. In 1995 it merged with the Trustee Savings Bank and traded as Lloyds TSB Bank plc between 1999 and 2013. The bank is the principal subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group, which was formed in January 2009 by the acquisition of HBOS by the then-Lloyds TSB Group. That year, following the UK bank rescue package, the British Government took a 43.4% stake in Lloyds Banking Group. As a condition imposed by the European Commission regarding state aid, the group later announced that it would create a new standalone retail banking business, made up of a number of Lloyds TSB branches and those of Cheltenham & Gloucester.