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Banking group Lloyds is cutting hundreds of jobs and closing its Liverpool office as the popular bank enters the final stages of a £4bn growth and digitalisation plan.
In a series of announcements to staff on Wednesday, Britain’s biggest retail lender said it would cut jobs and close its Speke office, forcing the 500 staff who work there to commute around 25 miles to Chester.
The bank, which has more than 60,000 employees, is expected to cut hundreds of jobs today, according to two people familiar with the matter. The planned cuts include 163 redundancies in England and Wales as part of the move according to the division of branches for Lloyds and Halifax customers, said another person familiar with the discussions, adding that two regional directors and 40 senior managers would be affected.
Lloyds said: “To achieve the ambitious strategy we launched in February 2022 and to better serve our customers, we are transforming our business.”
It is added that the change does not only mean “creating new roles and training colleagues in some parts of the business, but also saying goodbye to talented people who were part of the group’s success in the past.” Where this is unfortunately the case, we will do everything we can to support them with the recently announced changes”.
“The proposed closure of Lloyds Banking Group’s major hub in Liverpool Speke is a huge mistake,” said Dominic Hook, Unite’s national officer. “The impact on hundreds of employees and the region will be significant and completely unnecessary.”
Lloyds’ Liverpool office is a large fraud and customer service contact centre. The closures came as part of a series of announcements across the group on Wednesday.
Lloyds has embarked on a five-year, £4bn investment plan in 2022, led by chief executive Charlie Nunn, aimed at increasing non-interest income and digitizing the business to cut costs and improve returns.
As part of that effort, it has already reviewed 2,500 jobs and will begin eliminating jobs in 2023.
