Lloyds bank saves £2bn after HBOS IT integration

Lloyds Banking Group says the IT integration of its multiple brands has helped to save more than £2bn per year, with the migration of HBOS's 30 million accounts and data a major contributor to the savings.

The financial services giant, which announced a loss of £3.5bn for its fiscal year ended 31 December, took over the operations of Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) in 2008 at the height of the credit crunch.

The new banking platforms will be essential in enabling the bank to transform its business following the upheaval caused by the financial crisis. The bank started designing and building the integrated technical infrastructure in 2009 and finished building the systems in the first half of 2010.

“As at 31 December 2011, we had realised annual run-rate savings of £2,054m from the integration programme. A major part of the integration from an IT perspective was the migration of HBOS customer accounts and data to the scaled Lloyds TSB platforms and this was successfully completed in the third quarter,” said the bank in a statement.  

“This was an immense exercise involving the migration of approximately 30 million customer accounts and these platforms will now provide the foundation for the Group’s transformation plans.”

Lloyds Banking Group is 41% owned by the taxpayer after the UK government's recapitalisation of the banks in 2008. It said in 2010 that it expected its IT-enabled integration project with HBOS to save £2bn by the end of 2011.

The integration of the two companies is one of the largest ever undertaken in the UK.