EU commission may force Lloyds Banking Group to sell Halifax

It's a bad week for the black horse all right. After we discovered yesterday that Lloyds TSB's acquisition of Halifax had earned it the 'accolade' of most complained about bank with the Financial Ombudsman Service, today we find out that the EU might force it to sell Halifax as retribution for requiring state aid following it's acquisition of, er, HBOS.

Now I'm in no position to know but it seemed at the time, and still does, that there may have been a quite chat between gentlemen before that deal went through so it seems a shame that Lloyds might be forced to lose the Halifax brand, the only thing that may have sweetened what has turned out to be a quite disastrous deal for them.

The article suggests that Halifax would be a good acquisition target for either one of the companies looking at winning a UK banking licence or even Tesco - a strange choice if one of the reasons for ordering the divestment is to increase competition, given that Tesco already accounts for a huge proportion of consumer spending.

However, with 30 million customers Lloyds Banking Group accounts for almost half the UK population and very much fits the criteria for a bank that is too big to fail - or save - and so it's probably the right decision to break the group up. I suspect we'll see a lot more 'right-sizing' to come. Good news for marketers - more brands = more marketers - and hopefully also a new era of creativity as each seeks to carve out a distinctive niche.