Girobank
Former British bank / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For GiroBank (Denmark 1991–1995), see Danske Bank.
National Girobank was a British public sector financial institution run by the General Post Office that opened for business in October 1968.[1] It was initially called National Giro [2][3] then National Girobank and finally Girobank plc, before being absorbed into Alliance & Leicester in 2003.[4]
Quick Facts Company type, Industry ...
Company type | Statutory corporation (1968) Public limited company (1988) |
---|---|
Industry | Financial services |
Founded | 1968; 56 years ago (1968) |
Defunct | 2003 |
Fate | Privatised |
Successor | Alliance & Leicester |
Headquarters | Bootle, Merseyside |
Products | Postal giro, retail banking |
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It was the first bank in Europe to adopt OCR (optical character recognition) technology;[5] the first bank to offer interest-bearing current accounts,[4] and the first in Europe to offer telephone banking. It is credited for shaking up the UK banking market, forcing competitors to innovate and respond to the needs of the mass market.[citation needed]