Rarely does a new financial product launch these days without a wacky, if curious, designer brand promising to conquer young savers.

"Egg", "B2", "Octopus" may sound more like an esoteric shopping list than financial products, but the message is plain -- with new rivals snapping at their heels trying to steal their territory, banks are under pressure to reinvent themselves.

"They are all jockeying around with different ways of making themselves relevant and appealing," said David Haigh, managing director of financial brand valuation consultants Brand Finance.

"The problem in the past was a lot of the banks turned their backs on the customers and now they've suddenly turned towards them again," he said.

The power of an institutional brand is rapidly becoming one of the critical levers for product differentiation and success for banks, but getting there first is crucial.

Banks are struggling to outflank astream of former building societies and new supermarket banks aggressively cross selling to their existing client base.

Amid the scramble, varying signals are emanating from the industry. Banks with a strong customer base are on the defensive, trying to prevent leakage, others are cultivating new clients with novel products.

HSBC, Britain's biggest banking group, has decided to ditch the household name of its Midland Bank unit, but will keep the highly successful telephone banking arm First Direct.

Lloyds TSB has kept all of its brands, including mortgage lender Cheltenham & Gloucester. Halifax said it will retain the Birmingham Midshires name it bought last year as a separate mortgage lending business.

"If a brand does really provide competitive advantage then the fact that these strategies appear to be completely divergent would suggest that there will be a winner and a loser," said Timothy Sykes, analyst at CSFB.

Ultimately, it all boils down to customer loyalty.

HSBC wants to create amonolithic identity for its disparate brands around the world and unlock synergies, but analysts say the decision to drop Midland could backfire on it.

"If you have a negative experience of an aspect or a part of the HSBC empire, it's probably going to colour your view about other aspects of HSBC," said Tom Blackett, deputy group chairman of brand experts Interbrand Newell and Sorrell.

Other analysts feared a loss of identity for no real economic gain.

"That may go down in banking terms a bit like the repainting of all the tails of British Airways aeroplanes," said John Tyce, analyst at SG Securities, referring to a controversial decision by the airline to change the traditional look of its fleet.

Conversely, Lloyds might have been afraid of losing the distinct consumer franchises of TSB and C&G.

"Lloyds bank was getting brownie (plus) points for the fact that the C&G business is more stable, less erratic compared with general banking," said Tyce.

Direct Line, Royal Bank of Scotland's low costtelephone insurer could have not secured a 20 per cent share of the British motor market if it relied on the Royal Bank brand, analysts say.

"My perception is that the big banks have got their act together. They are not just doing it at a cosmetic level, they're also actively changing the way they operate internally," said an analyst.

Take Barclays' new baby "B2" -- a personal finance company targeting wealthy investors in their 20s and 30s. Analysts say the bank must have reckoned B2 would have a higher chance of success if it hid its involvement in it, finding just the right balance of distance and reassurance from Barclays.

"It could be that consumers don't associate Barclays with having the expertise to deliver a high quality product," said Blackett.

Prudential's new direct banking venture Egg wants to gain the same kind of recognition enjoyed by Apple in computers and Orange in mobile phones.

Since their October launch, the fledgling Egg services have been overwhelmed by depositors attracted totheir high interest rates.

Prudential says the fact that Egg may never leap to profitability isn't an issue as long as it keeps bringing new customers, but there are some qualms about it.

"Prudential is a big, lumbering, extremely conservative insurance company. How is it going to offer all these dynamic and exciting new services, I just don't believe it," said Blackett.

Brand experts say one of the problems facing banks is that, unlike consumer product companies, marketing experts don't often feature in the upper echelons.

"It can make quite a significant leveraging effect, but probably that message hasn't come fully through for financial services people," said one marketing expert.

The latest one came from First Direct. Its Octopus service aims to run the lives of money rich, time poor people and shows just how banks are getting to grips with what customers want even if it means diversifying away from traditional banking. For five pounds, customers can get experts to find a shop selling flip-flopsin winter or a Basque-style beret. NatWest already has a rival product called Zenda.