ABSTRACT
The late 1960s and early 1970s showed a relative improvement in Scotland’s economic prospects as a result of the increased activities of multinational companies in industries such as electronics and chemicals. The coming of North Sea oil was widely seen as consolidating and expanding this improvement. During the 1960s the movement of concentration in Scottish banking continued, and this process also led to a clarification of the relationship between the Scottish and the English banks. The National Bank and the Commercial Bank had merged in 1959, reducing the number of Scottish commercial banks to five. In 1968 the National Commercial Bank, in which Lloyds Bank held 37 per cent of the shares, acquired the Royal Bank and the resulting National and Commercial Banking Group became a holding company for its Scottish and English banking subsidiaries and its other financial subsidiaries.
