Co-op hoping to make a success of Lloyds branches

CO- op boss peter Marks is counting on a tailwind from the wave of public anger towards the big high street banks to make a success of the 632 branches he has bought from Lloyds.

He also brushed off suggestions that the Co-op’s unusual structure meant a lack of transparency around strategic decision-making.

Marks said the group has enjoyed a 61pc increase in requests from customers of other banks to switch to the Coop in the past three weeks. the period coincided with major scandals that have inflicted severe reputational damage on Barclays and HsBC.

‘When you look at the terrible unprecedented news coming out about the big five, we’re finding that customers are banging on our door to open accounts,’ he said. ‘We offer something different.’

the Co-op is different to publicly traded banks, in that it is owned by its members and directors are elected via a complex voting system.

Marks said the structure should not give cause for concern about governance. ‘i don’t think we’re opaque,’ he said. ‘We have a network of area committees and regional boards who elect people to represent them.’

He said that the Co-op represented the ‘gold standard’ in banking governance, although he acknowledged that ‘we’ve not got an awful lot to beat’.

Marks dismissed any suggestion that the Co- op might struggle to integrate project Verde, the codename Lloyds gave to a sale it was forced to carry out by the eU as a condition of the bailout that left it 40pc owned by the taxpayer.

the deal with Lloyds (up 0.46p to 30.24p) includes a cloned version of Lloyds it systems, which he said would safeguard against the possibility of customers’ data being compromised during the handover. treasury committee chairman Andrew tyrie said: ‘this deal provides an important opportunity to increase competition and to ensure challenge to the big five banks.’

He called for more to be done to improve competition in British banking.

But the sale of more than 300 RBs branches to santander has stalled and may not be complete by the end of the year.

santander is understood to be working out how to integrate branch networks and is also dragging its feet as it battles the effects of the crippling unemployment affecting the spanish economy.