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# British Retailer Sainsbury’s is winding down banking offering
- URL: https://www.embeddedfinancereview.com/british-retailer-sainsburys-is-winding-down-banking-offering/
- Published: 2024-01-26T23:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-15T20:32:14.000Z
- Description: Sainsbury's winds down banking business, joining Tesco in exiting financial services. Why UK retailers are rethinking banking licenses for embedded finance models.
- Author: Lars Markull
- Tags: News, Sainsbury's, Embedder, Retail, UK, Embedded Banking

Sainsbury’s Bank was originally launched in 1997 as part of a partnership between Sainsbury and Bank of Scotland, but Sainsbury’s took full ownership in 2014\. The bank has already offloaded it’s mortgage book in the summer of last year and [is now looking to exit](https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/43551/sainsburys-to-wind-down-core-banking-business?ref=embeddedfinancereview.com) the rest of its financial product offering, which includes loans, credit cards, and savings products. Sainsbury’s is likely to explore different options, including selling the bank to a competitor.

As a regular reader of this newsletter, this story will remind you of Tesco’s decision to sell Tesco Bank and, thus, exit financial services as well. Both retailers have had a similar approach to offering financial services and have now both decided that it does not make sense to continue this way.

A blow for embedded finance? Not really. Even though I have never used any of their products, it is probably fair to say that Sainsbury’s and Tesco Bank are much closer to a traditional banking offering than they are to an embedded finance product (perhaps except for the brand and having the stores as a customer acquisition channel). Most importantly, both companies have a banking licence of their own. When you read the [official announcement](https://otp.tools.investis.com/clients/uk/sainsbury/rns/regulatory-story.aspx?newsid=1752952&cid=162&ref=embeddedfinancereview.com) from Sainsbury’s, you will understand that offering financial services is still very attractive for them; however, the model (=own licence) is not suitable anymore, most likely due to high costs and regulatory burden. Sainsbury’s even emphasises that it is looking at a distribution model of financial products, similar to its insurance product offering.