March 2nd 1838, an advert was placed for a new joint stock banking firm in Glasgow: marking the founding of the Clydesdale Banking Company.
Two months later, the Clydesdale Banking Company opened for business in Glasgow - and Edinburgh - in May 1838. The history of the bank recalls that it was to be ‘chiefly a local bank - having few branches - but correspondents everywhere’. The bank was initially viewed as the brainchild of a collective of Glasgow businessmen, described as ‘liberal radicals … who were active in the government and charities of the city’. James Lumsden was the lynchpin behind the bank’s formation, a councillor who would later hold the role of Lord Provost of Glasgow.
Throughout the 19th century, Clydesdale hoovered up smaller banks, and was purchased by the Midland Bank in 1920, before merging with the North of Scotland Bank in 1950.
Mergers across the banking industry reduced the number of Scottish banks and by 1969, Clydesdale was the smallest after the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The bank were the first of our banks to start issuing a “polymer” notes in March 2015, and saw them immediately being put on auction site Ebay fetching up yo £100!! Since then the novelty has worn off.
It was eventually sold to the National Bank of Australia in 1987 but has now been separated again and was sold off last year again becoming an independent. In 2018 it was announced that Clydesdale Bank’s holding company CYBG would acquire Virgin money for £1.7 billion in an all-stock deal, and that the Clydesdale Bank will be getting phased out as a brand with Virgin Money being the new name of all the brands they own.
As more and more banks are disappearing from the High Streets, Clydesdale/ Virgin have recently closed 31 branches in locations across the UK, Airdrie, Banchory, Broughty Ferry, Cumbernauld, East Kilbride, Galashiels, Milngavie, Musselburgh, Oban, Portree, Stenhousemuir and Wick have all been lost in the last 6 moths.
While Clydesdale are still issuing notes the brand's owner, is retreating from its contracts to supply cash machines run by rival lenders. No longer will you get a crisp Clydesdale polymer note when drawing cash out of other ATM’s on the link system, the contract to supply them is being taken over by the other issuers of notes, Royal Bank of Scotland and Bank of Scotland. The move to infection-free contactless card payments during the Covid crisis has accelerated the reduced use of readies. With Clydesdale Bank no longer being a trading brand the name will continue to appear on the notes you get out of Virgin Money cash machines, but not any others.
The idea of issuing a Virgin Money banknote must have appealed to Richard Branson, particularly if his cheerful physog appeared on it with an airliner or balloon. But that's not happening. Virgin Money is not saying how much cash it's retiring as notes are returned, but it will be a big reduction from the £2.3bn which I'm understand is now in circulation - around 47% of the Scottish banknote total.
You wouldn't bet on it continuing indefinitely, because it's an odd and expensive advertising and marketing tool to support a brand being consigned to history, so in my opinion the notes will be gone from the Scottish scene before too long so anyone out there who still might have the old paper ones hang onto them, they might just be worth a bob or two in the not too distant future.
