The Co-operative Bank
Retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom
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| January 1 2025 | The acquisition of The Co-operative Bank by Coventry Building Society was completed. |
| November 2024 | Regulatory approval was granted for the acquisition of The Co-operative Bank by Coventry Building Society. |
| May 24 2024 | Coventry Building Society finalised its takeover of the bank and announced it would not give its members a vote on the deal. |
| April 19 2024 | Coventry Building Society agreed takeover terms for The Co-operative Bank, with a deal worth up to £780 million, subject to contract and regulatory approval. |
| March 2024 | The bank announced plans to consult staff on a restructure that would reduce staffing by 12%, approximately 400 staff members. |
| October 2023 | Challenger bank Shawbrook entered into acquisition talks with the Co-operative Bank. |
| August 2023 | The bank acquired the mortgage accounts of Sainsbury's Bank as part of its wider turnaround plans. |
| 2021 | The Bank's Open Banking service began experiencing a 'temporary outage' that continued into 2023. |
| 2020 | The relationship agreement between the Co-operative Bank and the Co-operative Group officially ended. |
| November 2020 | US private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management engaged in acquisition talks with the bank. |
| October 2020 | Andrew Bester informed the board of his intention to step down as CEO, and was subsequently replaced by Nick Slape, who was previously the bank's CFO. |
| August 2020 | The Co-operative Bank announced the closure of 18 of its 68 remaining branches, to be completed by the end of the year, and planned an 11% reduction in staff numbers in response to decreased branch usage and low interest rates. |
| 2019 | The Co-operative Bank committed to ongoing engagement with the Customer Union for Ethical Banking through a formal recognition agreement. |
| 2019 | The bank's auditors, KPMG, were fined £4 million by the Financial Reporting Council for misconduct related to the Britannia Building Society takeover, particularly concerning the valuation of commercial loans and liabilities. |
| May 2019 | The bank was awarded £15 million by Banking Competition Remedies (BCR) to grow its presence in the business banking market, successfully securing funding from the Capability and Innovation Fund's Pool B. |
| 2018 | The bank continued its partnership with Centrepoint, raising over £1 million to fund a national and specialist helpline for youth homelessness. |
| 2018 | The bank partnered with Refuge and successfully lobbied for a new banking industry code of practice to support customers affected by financial abuse. |
| September 2018 | The Co-operative Bank expressed interest in bidding for a £775 million fund aimed at developing business banking services and encouraging SME account transfers from RBS Group. |
| February 2018 | The bank announced a reduction of its branch network from 95 to 68 branches, to be completed during April and May 2018. |
| September 1 2017 | A new holding company was formed, ending the Co-operative Group's direct ownership of the bank. |
| July 2017 | Andrew Bester joined as the bank's CEO, with a strategic plan to enhance digital capabilities and develop the ethical brand further. |
| June 2017 | The bank's board discontinued the formal sale process. Institutional bondholders agreed to convert £426 million of bonds into equity, gaining a 17% stake in the bank. |
| May 2017 | The bank began seeking a debt-for-equity swap to address its financial challenges. |
| April 2017 | The Co-operative Group wrote off its 20% stake in the bank. |
| February 2017 | The Co-operative Bank's board announced they were commencing a sale process and inviting offers for the bank, with support from the Co-operative Group. |
| 2016 | The Save our Bank campaign transformed into the Customer Union for Ethical Banking, becoming a formal co-operative. The union established a membership model with members paying a small yearly fee. |
| 2015 | The ethical policy was revised and expanded based on feedback from over 320,000 customer responses to a poll. |
| 2014 | The bank launched an advertising campaign to promote its Ethical Policy. |
| April 2014 | An independent review concluded that the bank's problems originated from its 2009 takeover of Britannia Building Society and subsequent poor management controls. |
| 2013 | Co-operative Asset Management was sold to the Royal London Group. |
| 2013 | The bank's ethical policy was formally incorporated into its articles of association. |
| 2013 | The bank underwent a significant financial challenge following a merger with Britannia Building Society and a failed attempt to buy a larger rival, resulting in a capital shortfall of approximately £1.9 billion. |
| December 18 2013 | A High Court judge approved the bank's restructuring plan after it passed a creditor vote. |
| October 2013 | A group of customers, supported by Ethical Consumer magazine, launched the Save our Bank campaign in response to the bank's takeover. The campaign aimed to keep the bank adhering to its ethical policy and potentially return it to co-operative ownership, with 10,000 people signing up. |
| October 2013 | The Co-operative Group was forced to renegotiate its £1.5 billion rescue plan with US hedge funds, resulting in a reduction of its bank ownership from majority control to just 30%. |
| September 2013 | A £3.6 billion funding gap was discovered between the bank's estimated loan portfolio value and its potential realizable asset value. |
| June 17 2013 | The bank issued a press release explaining the bail-in scheme, which would compel subordinated bondholders to convert their debt to potentially uncertain equity shares. |
| June 16 2013 | Negotiations between the Co-operative Group and the Prudential Regulation Authority revealed a capital shortfall of approximately £1.5 billion, necessitating a 'bail-in' scheme. |
| May 2013 | Moody's downgraded the bank's credit rating by six notches to junk status (Ba3), which led to the resignation of chief executive Barry Tootell. |
| March 2013 | The Co-operative Bank reported significant financial losses of £600 million, signaling a serious financial crisis for the institution. |
| 2011 | Some Co-operative Bank customers were temporarily unable to use their debit cards due to unspecified IT system problems. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article The Co-operative Bank, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.