Big Four (banks)

For other uses of the name "Big Four", see Big Four.

Big Four is the name given to the four biggest banks in a certain area:

In the United Kingdom as a whole. For many decades these were: Lloyds Bank (now Lloyds TSB); NatWest, (now a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Scotland); Barclays Bank; and Midland Bank (now HSBC Bank plc). HBOS, which was formed by a merger between the Bank of Scotland and the former building society Halifax, is larger than Lloyds TSB by both assets and market capitalization, so the term is obsolete, but it is still sometimes used by the media
- In Northern Ireland; these are: Ulster Bank (owned by Royal Bank of Scotland), Bank of Ireland, Northern Bank (owned by Danske Bank) and First Trust Bank (part of AIB UK)
- In Scotland; these are: Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland, Clydesdale Bank and Lloyds TSB Scotland
In the Republic of Ireland; these are: AIB, Bank of Ireland, National Irish Bank (owned by Danske Bank) and Ulster Bank (owned by Royal Bank of Scotland)
In Australia; these are: the National Australia Bank, the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and ANZ
In Sweden; these are: Swedbank, merger between the Sparbanken - The Workers' Bank and Föreningsbanken - The Farmers' Bank in the late 1990's; Nordea, result of a pan-Nordic merger, SEB, Svenska Handelsbanken
In the People's Republic of China; these are: the Bank of China, the China Construction Bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Agricultural Bank of China
In South Africa; these are: the First National Bank , ABSA , Standard Bank, and Nedbank