HSBC to rebrand Britsh retail operation as HSBC UK..

The bank, which is based in Britain and has operations in 73 countries, announced in June that it would rebrand its UK business – and fuelled speculation it could potentially sell them off – as a result of the rules that require high street banking to be ringfenced from investment banking.

HSBC announces today that the name of its UK ring-fenced bank will be HSBC UK.

It was not immediately clear whether the red and white logo that HSBC uses across its global operations, and which features on airbridges at Heathrow airport, will remain part of its UK facias.

“Adding “UK” [will] distinguish the ring-fenced bank from the non-ring-fenced bank”, it helpfully pointed out.

The famous old Midland Bank name will NOT be revived on the high street after finance giant HSBC decided against restoring the brand.

Feedback indicated that the HSBC brand represents strength and connectivity, supporting the domestic and global ambitions of our customers.

The news comes just days after HSBC became the latest UK bank to be affected by a processing error which temporarily affected payments to customers.

However, a person close to the bank said the decision about the branding of its ring-fenced operation should not lead investors to draw conclusions about the outcome of the domicile review.

But in a statement this morning, HSBC said that after a “consultation process with retail, private and commercial banking customers, as well as customer-facing staff” (we wonder how much that cost), it had chose to opt for HSBC UK.

But the business was bought by HSBC in 1992 and branches were re-named in 1999.

It has been hit by the banking levy introduced since the financial crisis – seen as a key reason why HSBC is considering relocating away from London and possibly back to Hong Kong where it originated.

While HSBC’s bill from the Bank Levy will reduce over time, the impact on its overall tax burden remains unclear because of a new Corporation Tax surcharge that the Chancellor has also chose to implement on banks which make profits of more than £25m.