11-83-80 Sheffield University

Sheffield is amongst the first of Martins university Branches, opened on the crest of the huge wave of university building that takes place in the 1960s This branch is certainly striking and quite unusual and it provides the public with a full banking service, and students with financial advice for the full six days of the banking week. Sheffield University is a self accounting sub branch to the main Sheffield Branch at West Street, and lasts for a total of seventeen years, closing in 1977. Student Banking defines the start of competition amongst the banks for the custom of ordinary people – young people, who if caught and nurtured at the right time will turn into the “high net worth” customers of tomorrow - or so the theory goes - and until the mid 1990s British banks fall over themselves and each other to provide bigger and better incentives to students – clothing, sports bags, electronic gadgets, and the kind of interest-free borrowing the average small business would happily kill for!

Image © Barclays Ref 0030/2615

Eventually, and as only they can, the students show themselves to be boss, ever larger numbers failing to repay their loans and overdrafts, many showing little or no loyalty by moving to other banks at the drop of a hat. In the twenty-first century, it is good to see a return to kind of values shown by Martins fifty years ago, where managing money with care takes precedence over “what’s in it for me”…