Independent British banks

The table shows the main independent British banks. The list is quite short as British banking has been highly consolidated since the early 20th century.

The other main class of consumer financial service organisation in the United Kingdom is the building society, but the building society sector is much smaller than it used to be as most major building societies demutualised in the 1980s and 1990s. Halifax (now part of HBOS) and Abbey National (now foreign owned) were the two largest building societies. Of the banks on in the table above, Alliance & Leicester, Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley are former building societies. Several other buildings societies were taken over after they demutualised. See the building society article for a list of the largest remaining building societies. Only the Nationwide is larger than any of the banks in the table above.

British banking brands owned by British companies

• Bank of Scotland: merged with Halifax to form HBOS.
• Coutts: owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland.
• Egg plc is majority owned by the British insurance company Prudential plc and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
• Halifax: merged with the Bank of Scotland to form HBOS.
• Sainsbury's Bank: 55% owned by British supermarket company Sainsbury's and 45% owned by HBOS.
• Tesco Personal Finance: a 50:50 joint venture between British supermarket company Tesco and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
• Ulster Bank: owned by Royal Bank of Scotland
• The Woolwich: owned by Barclays

British banking brands owned by foreign banks

• Abbey National: owned by Santander Central Hispano of Spain. It was Britain's sixth largest bank by assets when it was taken over in 2004.
• Bank of Ireland: based in the Republic of Ireland. One of the leading banks in Northern Ireland, and present in Great Britain to a lesser extent.
• Clydesdale Bank: owned by National Australia Bank.
• First Trust Bank: owned by AIB Group of the Republic of Ireland.
• Northern Bank: owned by Danske Bank of Denmark.
• Yorkshire Bank: owned by National Australia Bank.

Foreign banks in the United Kingdom

Overseas consumer banking brands which are available in the UK include ING Direct and some Citibank products.

Virtually all of the world's leading banks have investment and commercial banking offices in the City of London.