Formation Colonel
Edward Akroyd is regarded as the initiator of the Bank; he was a prominent
Halifax industrialist, head of the family woollen firm of James Akroyd & Son, magistrate and
Member of Parliament. His philanthropic work led him to the importance of savings for the working class, much as the founders of the
savings banks and early penny banks had done decades before. His original intention was to establish both a
provident society and a penny bank within the same institution. In May 1856, Akroyd circulated a pamphlet to prominent figures in the county, leading to a public meeting in November at the Philosophical Hall, Leeds. A committee was formed to bring into being the West Riding of Yorkshire Provident Society and Penny Savings Society, with funds raised to finance both parts. In the event, the Provident Society proved uncompetitive with the large societies and it soon closed; the Bank then traded as the West Riding of Yorkshire Penny Savings Bank.
The unique Yorkshire concept The Yorkshire Bank was different from other savings banks. At the bottom of the savings chain stood the penny banks, doing what their name implied: accepting very small sums from the poorest local people. As their funds increased, they would be deposited with the trustee savings banks. The relationship between the penny banks and the savings banks could be close, with a savings bank acting as a receiving agency for a number of penny banks in its area. (The
Glasgow Savings Bank, for instance, had 97 of these by 1870.) What Akroyd envisaged was the Yorkshire forming and owning the local penny banks, and also being the receiving agent for their surplus funds. He began a campaign "to form a great network of penny banks and provident societies in the West Riding, guaranteed by the local gentry and industrialists". Akroyd saw the advantage of a central co-ordinating body for penny banks in a wide district; this could have been found in the Trustee Savings Banks, but Akroyd distrusted them. He wanted freedom of investment of the funds, and recognised that they could not grow just from the savings of the poor: the Bank needed small traders also. Considerable time was taken to establish the organisation. A key appointment in 1858 was of Peter Bent as accountant, later to become the Bank's first general manager. Finally, in May 1859 the Central Office was ready and the Bank registered under the
Friendly Society Acts. In the first month of its existence, two branches opened:
Dewsbury and
Oxenhope; by the end of the year there were 24 branches, and a year later there were 128, with total deposits of £23.000. These branches opened one evening a week, usually for an hour or two, and were generally known as "evening branches". By the end of 1860 the abortive Provident Society had been abandoned and it was decided to extend the Bank coverage from the West Riding to the whole county. Bent's son-in-law Henry Sellers took over and remained general manager until 1914. He introduced a stocks and shares department to the Bank and, as a result of the
Boer War, developed a network of international correspondents. By 1908, deposits had risen to £17 million. In 2006 underlying profit rose 16.7 per cent to £454 million compared with a year earlier, while post-tax earnings climbed 12.8 per cent to £229 million. Total income was up 8.7 per cent at £1,193 million, while net interest income climbed 14.6 per cent to £769 million. In April 2012, National Australia Bank completed a strategic review of its businesses in the United Kingdom and decided to scale back operations, completely stopping Commercial Property Investment lending and closing 29 Financial Solutions Centres, with the resultant loss of 1,400 jobs over three years. in 2008 In July 2013, Yorkshire Bank forgot to renew its
DNS server domain name, leading to customers being unable to log onto its website for a number of days. Yorkshire Bank blamed individual ISPs saying they had not refreshed their servers. On 2 September 2014 the bank suffered more IT related issues as its systems left customers unable to make or receive payments for a period of time.
CYBG plc National Australia Bank confirmed in October 2014 that it planned to leave the United Kingdom and was considering a number of options for Yorkshire and Clydesdale banks, including a possible stock-market listing. In October 2015 NAB announced that it would float
Clydesdale Bank plc, including Yorkshire Bank, on the
London Stock Exchange in February 2016 through an initial public offering, with an aim of raising £2 billion.
Clydesdale Bank plc's newly formed holding company
CYBG plc began conditional trading on the LSE and the
Australian Securities Exchange on 3 February 2016, and began trading unconditionally from 8 February 2016.
Transition to Virgin Money In June 2018 CYBG plc announced it would acquire
Virgin Money for £1.7 billion in an all-stock deal. Almost one in six employees was expected to lose their jobs in the takeover, which would result in retail customers being migrated to the Virgin Money brand over three years. In June 2019 CYBG plc announced its plans to consolidate its businesses under the Virgin Money brand.
B and Yorkshire Bank, which exist as trading divisions of Clydesdale Bank plc, would begin to use the Virgin Money name in early 2020 and Clydesdale Bank to use the new name between late 2020 and early 2021. In September 2019 Yorkshire Bank confirmed it would be leaving its Leeds headquarters, with two hundred employees being relocated to the bank's flagship branch on Briggate. In preparation for rebranding, the existing
Virgin Money plc was merged into the existing
Clydesdale Bank plc on 21 October 2019. == See also ==