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Lloyds Banking Group will allow its Halifax, Lloyds and Bank of Scotland customers to use any of its three-brand branches, fueling union concerns that the British lender is preparing to close hundreds of locations and cut more jobs.
In a memo to staff outlining priorities for the year, Lloyds head of consumer relations Jayne Opperman said the group needed to “evolve as [it] supports customers” in physical branches even though “more and more people are choosing mobile instead of any other way of banking”.
“That’s why – from the end of this year – we will enable customers to use any of our Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland branches, regardless of the brand they deal with, giving them access to the largest combined branch network in the UK,” she added.
A quarter of the UK’s biggest banking group’s UK branches are in close proximity, Lloyds said in a 2023 internal presentation seen by the Financial Times. The high-street bank has around 932 branches, according to trade union Accord.
The combination of banking services across different brands could make some of those branches redundant, raising concerns that it could pave the way for another round of mass closures.
Mark Brown, general secretary of the BTU, the independent trade union at Lloyds, said the main driver behind the decision was “to make it easier for Lloyds to close more branches and save more money”, rather than improving the customer experience.
“We estimate that Lloyds will be able to close 233 branches at a time when thousands of employees will lose their jobs,” he added.
Lloyds he said he is “always looking for ways to make banking easier and more flexible for our customers”.
High street banks have closed more than 6,000 branches in the past decade, according to consumer group Which?.
These closures have helped lenders cut costs, but strained local communities’ access to cash and financial services. More than 7 in 10 UK adults use cash at least once a fortnight, according to ATM service provider LINK.
The Labor government has promised to speed up the roll-out of so-called banking hubs run jointly by banks, Cash Access UK and the Post Office in areas where lenders have pulled back. It has set a target of 350 hubs during the current parliament.
Lloyds’ strategy under chief executive Charlie Nunn has been to “deepen its relationship” with customers at the same time as it becomes increasingly digitalised. As part of that effort, the bank reviewed 2,500 jobs and began a layoff cycle in 2023.
Opperman said in her memorandum that a key priority for the group was to increase the number of mobile app users – from the current 20 million – and that it would update its Halifax and Bank of Scotland mobile apps in the coming weeks.
“I know change can seem scary, but when we embrace it, we create better results for both our clients and colleagues,” she added.
