A British Trades Union formed in 1946 from the merger of the National Officers Bank Guild and the Scottish Bankers' Association when it called itself the National Union of Bank Employees. Renamed itself as the the Banking, Insurance and Finance Union or BIFU in 1979.
For many years British Banks and Insurance companies sought to frustrate unionism within their ranks by setting up pet staff associations for their employees. This did not prevent BIFU from competing against the associations for members and adopting a far more aggressive stance. Most of these staff associations have now cast off their ties to their employers and become independent trade unions in their own right, and in 1999 the former staff associations of the Barclays and National Westminster banks, and the Royal and Sun Alliance insurance company joined with BIFU to form a new union under the name of UNIFI.