Lloyds to reopen BoS HQ to high value customers

THERE was widespread outrage when HBOS announced that it was closing the branch of Bank of Scotland based in its historic Edinburgh headquarters on The Mound.

The decision prompted letters to the papers and the formation of a campaign group by those who believed it represented a further erosion of the city's illustrious banking pedigree.

But eight years on from that controversial announcement the iconic building overlooking Princes Street gardens is once again welcoming customers.

Lloyds Banking Group is encouraging business owners to meet relationship managers there and is moving Bank of Scotland's private banking division into the building. Eighty staff will relocate from Edinburgh Park to The Mound where they will service the bank's wealthy clients.

Philip Grant, who has taken over as Lloyds' top operations man in Scotland, is keen to rebuild trust with the public and said he wanted to see the building used for what it was intended.

"Customers have been coming in to see relationship managers so this has become a customer space once again. I was keen to use it for customers. It is a good space with scale and a distinctive part of Bank of Scotland."

It was former HBOS chief executive James Crosby who ordered a "comprehensive restoration" of the 200-year-old building in 2003 after the merger two years earlier of Halifax Bank and Bank of Scotland. The multi-million pound refurbishment was intended to signify the newly-combined group's commitment to Edinburgh.

Then came the bad news. HBOS said it intended to use the head office as a venue for "major corporate entertaining", with updated conference and dining facilities, and this would involve the relocation of its bank branch.

Customers, who included some of Edinburgh's well-heeled, did not take lightly to seeing their business relocated elsewhere.

A campaign group, including several former Bank of Scotland general managers, two high court judges and James Miller, former chairman of the Miller Group, jointly signed a letter to The Scotsman protesting that the Mound headquarters should be "open freely to customers and members of the public" and not retained simply to provide entertainment facilities for HBOS executives and their guests.

Lloyds, which inherited the building in the 2009 takeover of HBOS, may have noted that a lot of high net-worth people used the branch at The Mound because, according to one correspondent, "they liked keeping their account at the headquarters".