The Alliance and Leicester is a British banking group created by the conversion of the original Alliance and Leicester Building Society in 1997. (Which itself was only created in 1985 following the merger between the Alliance Building Society and the Leicester Building Society; hence the name.)
Its core business remains that of deposit taking and mortgage lending although it does have a significant Commercial banking presence arising out of its acquisition of Girobank from the Post Office in 1990.
It currently has assets of more than £30 billion and made profits of around £400 million in the calendar year 2001.