Tesco renames financial services offering as group sales and profits increase

By Joe Thomas, marketingmagazine.co.uk, 06 October 2009, 10:00AM

LONDON - Tesco has changed the name of Tesco Personal Finance to Tesco Bank as the retailer reported sales and profits increases during the first half of the financial year.

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In the 26 weeks ending 29 August 2009 UK sales rose by 2.8% (5.5% excluding petrol) to £20,651m with trading profit up 7.4%, compared with the same period last year.

Tesco said that although the retail economy is passive there were positive signs, such as consumers purchasing more discretionary lines such as Finest.

Higher saies are also being attributed to the ‘double-up' Clubcard points activity which rolled out in May.

During the first half of the year the supermarket giant opened 87 new stores, which included its 1000th Tesco Express store.

In non-food its clothing range performed strongly with sales growth of 6.6%. Tesco on October 1 re-launched its online clothing offering to give consumers a wider range.

Tesco said the renaming of its financial services offering (now Tesco Bank) was in recognition of its longer-term objective of creating a full-service retail bank for Tesco customers, offering a range of banking and insurance services through branches in stores and online. In the last year it has grown the number of accounts by 300,000, to a total of more than six million across all products.

The Tesco Group reported an 11.4% increase in sales (ex-petrol), 8.3% inc-petrol at £30.4bn, with 14% growth in trading profit, over the same period.

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk