Top 5 Bank Companies For 2016

Top 5 Bank Companies For 2016: Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LYG)

Lloyds Banking Group plc, incorporated on October 21, 1985, is a holding company. The Company is a financial services group providing a range of banking and financial services, primarily in the United Kingdom, to personal and corporate customers. The Company operates in four segments: Retail, Commercial Banking, Wealth, Asset Finance and International and Insurance. Retail provides banking, mortgages and other financial services to personal customers in the United Kingdom. Commercial Banking provides banking and related services to business clients, from small businesses to large corporate. Wealth, Asset Finance and International provides private banking and asset management and asset finance in the United Kingdom and overseas and operates the Company's international retail businesses. Insurance provides long term savings, protection and investment products in the United Kingdom and Europe and provides general insurance to personal customers in the United Kingdom.

Retail

The Retail division operates the retail bank in the United Kingdom and is a provider of current accounts, savings, personal loans, credit cards and mortgages. This includes a range of current accounts including packaged accounts and basic banking accounts. It is also the provider of personal loans in the United Kingdom, as well as being the United Kingdom's credit card issuer. Retail is the private sector savings provider in the United Kingdom. It is also a general insurance and bancassurance distributor, offering a range of long-term savings, investment and general insurance products.

Commercial Banking

The Commercial Banking division supports the Company's business clients from small businesses to corporate. Commercial Banking provides support to corporate clients through the provision of core banking products, such as lending! , deposits and transaction banking services whilst also offering clients expertise in capita l markets (private placements, bonds and syndicated loans), ! financial markets (foreign exchange, interest rate management, money market and credit) and private equity.

Wealth, Asset Finance and International

Wealth, Asset Finance and International consists of the Company's the United Kingdom and international wealth businesses, the Company's the United Kingdom and international asset finance and online deposit businesses along with its international retail businesses. The Wealth business consists of private banking and asset management. Wealth's private banking operations cater to the range of wealth clients from affluent to Ultra High Net Worth within the United Kingdom, Channel Islands and Isle of Man, and internationally. Asset Finance consists of a number of leasing and speciality lending businesses in the United Kingdom, including Lex Autolease and Black Horse Motor and Personal Finance along with its leasing and specialty lending businesses in Australia and its European online deposit business. T he international business comprises its non-core banking business outside the United Kingdom, with the exception of corporate business written through the Commercial Banking division. This primarily consists of Ireland, Retail Europe and Asia.

Insurance

The Insurance division provides long-term savings, protection and investment products and general insurance products to customers in the United Kingdom and Europe. The United Kingdom Life, Pensions and Investments business provides long-term savings, protection and investment products distributed through the bancassurance, intermediary and direct channels of the Lloyds TSB, Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Scottish Widows brands. The European Life, Pensions and Investments business distributes products primarily in the German market under the Heidelberger Leben and Clerical Medical brands. The General Insu! rance bus! iness is a distributor of home insurance in the United Kingdom, with products sold through the branch network, direct channels and strategic corporate! partners! . It operates primarily under the Lloyds TSB, Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jonas Elmerraji]

  The good news is that you don't need to be an expert technical trader to figure out what's going on in shares of Lloyds Banking Group (LYG) -- a quick glance at the chart should tell you everything you need to know. Lloyds is bouncing its way lower in a textbook downtrending channel, a setup that has this London-based financial name looking at lower ground by year-end.

  The downtrend in LYG is formed by a pair of parallel trendlines that identify the high-probability range for shares of this stock to stay within. In other words, every successive test of trendline resistance on the way down has provided a high-probability selling opportunity, and as LYG backs off of that level for a seventh time since this summer, it makes sense to be a seller here.

• [By Alanna Petroff]

  4. A financial giant: Shares in British financial institutions based in Scotland, such as Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds (LYG), have been battered by concerns that a vote in favor of independence could damage their business. RBS has said it could hurt its credit rating and raise costs.

• [By Sara Sjolin]

  Shares of Lloyds Banking Group PLC (UK:LLOY)   (LYG)  lost 3.8% after the U.K. bank posted a full-year loss as provisions for mis-selling payment-protection insurance continued to weigh on its bottom line.

• [By Sara Sjolin]

  Banks were among major decliners, playing a part in dragging the FTSE 100 index lower. Shares of Barclays PLC (UK:BARC) ! !   (BCS)  fell 2.7%, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (UK:RBS)   (RBS)  dropped 2.9%, Lloyds Banking Group PLC (UK:LLOY)   (LYG)  gave up 2.3% and sector heavyweight HSBC Holdings PLC (UK:HSBA) (HBC)   (HK:5)  erased 1.3%.

source from Top Stocks For 2015:http://www.topstocksblog.com/top-5-bank-companies-for-2016.html