First Direct
UK Bank
First Direct (styled first direct) is a telephone and internet based direct retail bank, which is a division of HSBC UK Bank plc based in the United Kingdom. First Direct has headquarters in Leeds, England, and in 2024, had 1.9 million customers. On its launch, it was the UK's first telephone-only bank.
History
First Direct was formed on 1 October 1989 by Midland Bank, one of the 'big four' banks in the United Kingdom. First Direct took its first call on 12:01 am on 1 October 1989; more than 1,000 calls were taken within the first twenty four hours. The launch of First Direct in 1989 was advertised twofold. Firstly, there was an advert for Audi which was interrupted by a broadcast purportedly back in time from 2010, celebrating the 21st anniversary of the company (the interruption was agreed with Audi beforehand). Secondly, there were two different adverts running concurrently on ITV and Channel 4, one offering a negative view showing the aspects of normal banking (with a blues song mimed by Steve Punt) and the other a positive view of First Direct (with a gospel song mimed by Jeremy Swift), with the two crossing over at a key point.
By May 1991, the bank had 100,000 customers. In June 1992, it became a part of HSBC, when HSBC acquired Midland Bank.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “First Direct” is uK Bank. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through First, Direct and Bank, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5452919. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2024, 1989, 2010 and 1991.
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This entry incorporates text from “First Direct” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.