Midland Bank II: rebooting old blockbusters is a sign of desperation

High-street banking needs to be re-invented, says Matthew Lynn. Stepping back into the 19th century isn’t going to help.

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HSBC should ger radical, not retro

It is not entirely clear what the word Midland conjures up right now. A big motorway snarl-up. A lot of heavy metal. A bunch of football teams that always seem to be struggling to stay in the Premier League. One thing it does not really create is an impressionof high-tech dynamism. Even so, "Midland" seems to be front runner as HSBC looks to rebrand its UK business in preparation for what is likely to be a decision to move its headquarters back to the Far East. That was, after all, the name of the British chain that HSBC took control of in 1992 and will be familiar to many customers.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.