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by hogFeast 2326 days ago
They weren't. This was never an option for banking, it is heavily protected almost everywhere (even within the Single Market).

The issue is that the UK is a very hard market: infinite competition from startups that are well-capitalised, and huge mega-banks that invest heavily in technology and run at low cost. For example, Lloyds has £400bn in retail deposits and cost/income of ~50%...German/French banks run closer to ~75-80%. We have some laggards (RBS) but generally, it is very tough (as are the Nordics).