Egg was an internet bank headquartered in Derby, that is now a trading name of Yorkshire Building Society. Egg was born out of the banking arm in the United Kingdom of Prudential plc, which was established in 1996, and the Egg brand was launched in October 1998. The first online credit card was launched in September 1999. It was only possible to operate an Egg account over the internet, or via their call centre. Egg specialised in savings and general insurance, together with loans, credit cards and mortgage products. The business was sold in January 2007 to Citigroup. In March 2011, the credit card accounts were bought by Barclaycard, and in July 2011, the remaining savings and mortgage businesses were sold to Yorkshire Building Society, which subsequently transferred all remaining customer accounts over from Egg. Following the sale of its assets, Egg Banking plc, which remained under the ownership of Citigroup, was renamed Canada Square Operations Limited and continues to handle matters relating to certain Egg products from before the sale of assets and any assets that were not transferred to the new owners. History Egg was established as a division of life assurance company Prudential. Prudential Banking was involved in direct selling of savings and mortgage products. On 11 October 1998, the division was renamed Egg, and relaunched as the United Kingdom's first Internet bank. The bank offered 8% savings interest and the first credit card in the United Kingdom, which offered a 0% interest rate on both new purchases and balance transfers, with also an annual anniversary offer, and as a result soon had more than two million customers enjoying these market leading rates. In June 2000, Prudential cashed in on its stake, and floated 21% of the company on the London Stock Exchange, retaining 79%. In January 2004, Prudential announced its intention to sell its remaining stake in Egg to a third party. Paul Gratton was chief executive of Egg in 2001. Despite rumours of interest from the likes of Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC, no formal offers were made public, and Prudential dropped its plans in August 2004. Subsequently, Prudential bought back the remaining minority share in January 2006, and delisted the organisation from the London Stock Exchange. Chief executive officer Paul Gratton left the organisation in March 2006, to be replaced by then chief operating officer Mark Nancarrow. Nancarrow was subsequently replaced by Ian