Abbey National, daringly, lets customers calculate the cost of a mortgage or a loan.
For example Abbey National's Cahoot and Halifax's IF are offering 5.9% and 5.01% respectively.
The Bank of Scotland (BoS) says it is still in talks with mortgage bank Abbey National about a merger.
It also concluded that the merger would harm consumer choice, with the possible loss of existing Abbey National products.
Abbey National joins a slew of financial institutions which are launching online banks.
HSBC, Abbey National and Woolwich, though Open says it would like more.
The most likely bidders remain Royal Bank of Scotland and Abbey National.
He sees it as the equivalent in size and market power of Abbey National, before that former building society was bought by Santander.
It concluded that the acquisition of Abbey National by Lloyds TSB could be expected to lead to higher prices and a loss of innovation.
For Bank of Scotland, which had formerly tried to take over first NatWest and then link up with Abbey National, a merger also makes much sense.
Three days later, Abbey National, Britain's sixth-largest bank, said that its life-insurance subsidiaries would pay no bonuses at all this year to many of their customers.
According to a recent survey by Abbey National, only one in 50 people in the UK has taken the plunge into self-employment over the past year.
The Commission considered that Abbey National was an important force for competition in the PCA market, regardless of whether the proposed merger between Bank of Scotland and Halifax proceeded.
Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, has decided not to permit the proposed acquisition by Lloyds TSB Group plc (Lloyds TSB) of Abbey National plc (Abbey).
Barclays has taken over Woolwich, NatWest was the subject of a hostile takeover battle, while Abbey National took over Scottish Provident, a mutual insurance company, and Lloyds TSB bought Scottish Widows.
For Jean Sassus of Raymond James Euro Equities, it's also doubtful that a merger would really result in long-term gains, such as those achieved when Spain's Banco Santander made when it took over Abbey National in Britain.
Abbey National, once a dull but solid British building society (thrift), moved into wholesale banking in an attempt to reduce its dependence on its traditional mortgage business, only to suffer big losses in high-yield credit and other novel businesses.
As the year 2000 began we were wondering who would buy Nat West - finally of course the Royal Bank of Scotland did - recently Barclays bought the Woolwich and as the year ends we're wondering who'll get Abbey National - Lloyds TSB or Bank of Scotland?
The commission noted that Abbey National was only a recent entrant to this market, but considered that its brand name, national network of branches and presence in personal and some business markets made it one of the very few players outside the big four able to compete in the SME market.
Fears over the future of Scotland's National Museum of Costume at New Abbey have been raised at Holyrood.
It was bought at auction by the National Trust, which owns Lacock Abbey.
Museum chiefs have rejected calls for a 12-month reprieve for the closure-threatened National Museum of Costume near New Abbey.
Experts are hoping to discover more about a tribe that lived in the fort below Abbey Craig in Stirling, on the site of the National Wallace monument.
By the time he died, blind and afflicted by various ailments, he had become so much of a national institution that his wish to be buried in Westminster Abbey was instantly granted, with a large marble statue topping his grave.
The records office bought the manuscript with help from the Friends of the National Libraries, the Victoria and Albert Museum and a donation from the Friends of Reading Abbey.
BBC: Medieval Reading Abbey manuscript goes on public display
The current version has been condensed into a play of about four hours in a co-production between the Edinburgh Festival and the Abbey Theatre of Dublin (which, we are reminded in a programme note, is the Irish National Theatre).
The self-portrait, the only Rembrandt in the National Trust's huge collection of 13, 500 paintings, will remain on display at Buckland Abbey until the end of the tourist season -- where it is expected to attract plenty of visitors -- and will then be sent for further tests to help confirm its new identity.
CNN: Mystery masterpiece revealed as Rembrandt self-portrait
Dr Williams has also been pivotal to national events, including the Royal Wedding at which he married the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at Westminster Abbey in 2011.
应用推荐