Lloyds Banking Group is axing the Halifax brand, which has been a high street name for 173 years.

The UK’s biggest banking group has confirmed that existing Halifax customers will start to see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds, but it has not specified an exact timeline.

Branches will be rebranded to Lloyds and the bank will stop offering new accounts under the Halifax name.

There is no change to Bank of Scotland.

Customers who use the Halifax banking app will need to transfer to the Lloyds app in due course, but they will be notified when to do so.

Halifax Intermediaries will become Lloyds Intermediaries in 2027, the lender told brokers in an email this morning.

The Halifax Permanent Benefit Building Society, as it was originally known, was established in Halifax in December 1852.

During the Industrial Revolution, people moved to small towns to work in manufacturing but the sudden influx led to housing shortages.

Building societies, such as the Halifax, were launched to help workers save up and earn interest or borrow money to buy homes.

In 1997, Halifax members voted to demutualise and become a bank, in what was the biggest flotation on the UK stock market creating 7.5 million shareholders.

In 2001, Halifax merged with Bank of Scotland to become HBOS, while still maintaining both high street brands.

Then in 2009, amid the fallout from the financial crisis, Lloyds took over HBOS to form Lloyds Banking Group.

Trinity Financial product and communications manager Aaron Strutt says: “It is a real shame that the Halifax brand is going particularly as it was founded as a building society and has been around for such a long time.

“The bank has a great reputation especially in the mortgage world but it may well have been a bit outdated so I can understand why they are making the change to align it with Lloyds.

“This will take some time to digest for many people because the Halifax name has played such a big part in the banking world for such a long time.

“So many of the well know banks and building societies have either been bought by the big lenders or gone out of business in recent years.”