The United Kingdom is home to several of the most important banks in Europe. Three UK-based banks - HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, and Barclays – are not only the largest banks in the country, but also rank among the
in terms of market capitalization. At the end of 2023, Barclays had a market capitalization of almost 30 billion U.S. dollars, while Lloyds' market cap exceeded 38 billion U.S. dollars.
is by the largest bank not only in the UK, but in Europe, with a market capitalization of over 156 billion U.S. dollars. Other large and well-known banks in the UK are NatWest and Standard Chartered, even though they do not rank among the top players in Europe.
Are large banks the best banks?
The largest banks in the UK perform well according to profitability and stability measures, such as the
common equity tier 1 (CET1) ratio, where all the largest banks are well above the minimum requirements of the
Basel III accord. According to customers, however,
satisfaction appears to be higher among the new competitors: the online banks like Starling Bank, First Direct, or Monzo. These relatively new actors in the banking sector see a high number of
net current account customers switching to their banks, while the giants such as Barclays and HSBC have seen large net losses of customers during the last few years.
Which are the popular online banks in the UK?
There are several online banks operating in the UK, but the
three most popular ones are Monzo, Revolut, and Starling Bank. Monzo was founded in 2015 and is a digital-only bank with no physical branches.
Their customer numbers are growing rapidly, and as of 2023, the bank had more than seven million customers, a figure that has almost doubled in three years. The other major digital-only bank in the country, Starling Bank, was founded in 2014 and has also been growing in popularity. The bank has had
high ratios of new customers gained between 2018 and 2023, despite the downward trend in recent years. Though the bank operates globally,
most of their customers are from the United Kingdom.
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