RETIRED Bolton bank manager Alan Gill will head back to his old place of work today as TSB makes a return to the high street.

The bank, which disappeared from town centres across the UK in 1995, relaunched yesterday.

There are three TSB branches in Bolton — in Hotel Street in the town centre; Derby Street, Daubhill; and Winter Hey Lane in Horwich.

Mr Gill will open the Derby Street branch at 10.30am today.

TSB is now Britain's eighth largest high street bank as it begins reappearing across Britain as a standalone brand for the first time since 1995, when it merged with Lloyds.

Lloyds, rescued by the government in the financial crisis, has revived the name after being forced to ditch 631 branches under European rules on state aid.

The branches are all expected to re-open under the TSB brand over the first three days of this week.

However, the bank suffered an embarrassing IT failure yesterday that left some of its millions of customers unable to access their accounts online.

A spokesman for the bank said: “We are experiencing an issue with our internet banking service this morning, which has affected the ability of some customers to log on successfully.

“We are working to resolve this as quickly as we can and we apologise to customers for the inconvenience this will have caused. Our branches, telephone banking and cashpoint facilities have not been affected in any way.”

TSB said it would lead “a return to local banking” and said it would welcome “customers, old and new, who want to see economic growth in Bolton”.

Paul Pester, TSB’s chief executive, said: “We look forward to bringing local banking back to Bolton and serving the local community.

“And let’s not forget where we have come from. The TSB movement was originally created over 200 years ago when the Reverend Henry Duncan established the first Savings Bank in Ruthwell, Scotland.

“Its sole purpose then was to serve the local people in the community. This is what we’re doing again today as we bring the new TSB Bank back to Bolton, and 630 other places in Britain, to fuel local economies.”