In the middle of the current economic turmoil, Abbey Bank are taking on a new name. Along with two other UK financial institutions, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley, Abbey will be rebranded as Santander Bank, the name of their Spanish parent. Abbey's brand currently includes Santander's flame logo, and Abbey credit cards are being rebranded with the Santander name from this month. All of Santander's UK banks will finalise the rebranding by end of next year.Although rebranding can be risky, Santander have a good reason for moving ahead. Thanks to systems mergers, soon customers of all these three UK banks will be able to make deposits and payments or withdraw cash at any of the 1,300 branches. In other words, rebranding reinforces the message that customers will now find banking at Santander more convenient because the merger created an expanded branch network.
What will happen to Abbey's brand equity? For now, Santander are keeping the Abbey brand for the bank's foreign operations. UK consumers, however, will see the Abbey brand replaced by the Santander brand before the end of 2010.
