M&S Bank

Marks & Spencer Financial Services plc, trading as M&S Bank, is a retail bank operating in the United Kingdom. The company was founded in 1985 as St Michael Financial Services as the financial services division of Marks & Spencer and adopted its current name in 2012.

Initially focused on providing credit through in-house store cards, the bank now provides credit cards, loans and savings accounts for personal customers.

M&S Bank is operated as a joint-venture with HSBC UK and has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the latter since its sale in November 2004. The bank retains its own banking licence and board and continues to occupy its purpose-built headquarters in Chester.[2]

The bank is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by both the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. It subscribes to the Lending Code.[3]

History

Former products

Store cards

The bank's first products were the Budgetcard and Chargecard store cards.[4] These allowed customers to make 'buy now, pay later' purchases in Marks & Spencer stores, which did not accept mainstream credit cards until April 2000.[20] Chargecard received 270,000 applications within three weeks of its launch in 1985[4] and by 1999 was claimed to be the country's biggest store card scheme with over 6 million cardholders.[21]

From October 2003 onwards, around 2.6 million customers were offered a new Mastercard credit card to replace their existing Chargecard, leading to 1.7 million customers migrating to the new product.[6] The Budgetcard was removed from sale for new customers in 2005 and the Chargecard in 2011, followed by a final withdrawal and closure of both products in 2024.[22]

Bureaux de change

Marks & Spencer's in-store bureaux de change and travel money services were previously managed by M&S Bank. This included around 100 bureaux staffed by Marks & Spencer colleagues and a Click & Collect money service allowing Euros and US Dollars to be ordered online and collected from most other Marks & Spencer stores.[23] In spring 2025, these services were taken over by a division of Eurochange.

Current accounts

A paid-for Premium Current Account featuring benefits tailored to regular Marks & Spencer customers was launched during 2012,[12] followed in 2014 by a standard current account offering the typical free in-credit banking commonplace in the UK.[24]

On 4 March 2021, M&S Bank announced that it would discontinue its current account sales and close all current accounts by August 2021.[2] Press reports suggested that only 150,000 of the bank's customers were current account holders and that the company intended to focus instead on core products such as credit cards and loans, along with new digital payment solutions.[25]

Mortgages

A range of mortgages was introduced in 2018,[5] but signup of new customers ceased in 2020 as part of the bank's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and there are no plans to re-enter the market.[2]

trade name	M&S Bank
former name	M&S Money St Michael Financial Services
type	Subsidiary
foundation	1985
founder	Marks & Spencer
location	Kings Meadow, Chester
key people	David Lister (chairman and Non-executive director Colin O’Flaherty (Chief executive)‡R1R‡
industry	Finance and Insurance
products	Financial services
parent	HSBC UK
homepage	http://bank.marksandspencer.com

History

Products and services

Credit Cards

Sparks Pay

Loans

Insurance