In Scandinavia a number of retailers have established banks and some have tried to become gereral purpose retail banks offering consumers all the neccessary basic banking services like deposits, salary payment accounts, unsecure loans, mortgages, bill payment services, debit and credit cards... but with slow uptake and usually loss leading business. The more successful retailer owned banks have instead focused on unsecure lending and credit cards tapping their vast customer base for credit needs with a good profit margin. Customers in Scandinavia have been reluctant to abandon their traditional full service retail bank and instead in many cases taken up additional service like credit cards from a new bank supplier, in some cases a retailer owned bank.  It is probably difficult for a non core player to run a fully fledged retail bank  including deposit, investment, lending and payment services with all the variations that exist in modern society including multi-channel distribution with the cost efficiency an established major player can do. An important advantage for the established banks is the value of the competent branch office network.  This may be difficult to establish and uphold in a supermarket environment. It will be interesting to see how the British retailer managed bank will succeed and how customers will percieve the supermarket brand with financial services.