Lloyds to create 2,000 jobs in drive to digitise banking giant
Around 6,000 existing jobs are to be axed, with 8,000 new positions being created by the high street giant, Sky News learns.
Monday 5 November 2018 18:17, UK
Britain's biggest high street lender will this week announce plans to create 8,000 jobs as part of a 拢3bn transformation and technology investment programme.
Sky News has learnt that Lloyds Banking Group will announce on Tuesday that it is cutting around 6,000 existing roles but establishing approximately 8,000 new posts, leading to a net jobs creation figure of around 2,000.
The reorganisation will form part of a three-year strategy announced in February that involves a multi-billion pound outlay on digitising its infrastructure and the range of services it offers to customers across its banking, insurance and pensions operations.
Sources said on Monday that the 6000 existing jobs being cut would come from a broad range of areas across Lloyds, including its group transformation division, corporate banking, retail and community banking activities.
The 8,000 new roles are understood to focus on areas of digital expansion including in the group transformation unit, reflecting the changes taking place across the banking industry.
Unions are understood to have been briefed on the plans, which will see staff in the 6,000 affected posts given the opportunity to apply for one of the new roles.
The changes will be the latest in a long series of jobs announcements made by Lloyds since it was created by the merger of HBOS and Lloyds TSB during the 2008 banking crisis.
Tuesday's news will be unusual, however, in that it will involve a net increase in headcount.
Lloyds has cut tens of thousands of jobs over the last decade as it has sought to make itself run more efficiently.
Lloyds has cut tens of thousands of jobs over the last decade as it has sought to make itself run more efficiently under the leadership of Antonio Horta-Osorio, its Portuguese chief executive.
More than 90% of those job reductions have come from natural attrition or voluntary redundancies, according to previous statements from Lloyds.
The bank was bailed out with more than £20bn of taxpayers' money, but that was subsequently repaid, with the government eventually selling the last of its shareholding in 2017.
Mr Horta-Osorio has been in charge since 2011, and faced questions in February about whether he would see through the entirety of the three-year strategy which runs until the end of 2020.
He has insisted that he remains committed to the bank.
Declining footfall in bank branches and the explosion in digital banking, led by both high street players and a crop of start-up rivals, are changing the shape of the banking industry.
Lloyds, which is the biggest digital bank in the UK with more than 14 million customers, is also seeking to expand its business in other areas.
It recently agreed a broad partnership with Schroders, the asset management giant, to take the bank into new areas of wealth advice, and has grown its credit card business with the takeover of MBNA.
Mr Horta-Osorio is widely regarded as having done an effective job steering Lloyds through dangerous financial minefields including the payment protection insurance scandal, which has cost it close to £20bn.
However, its shares have suffered during the last year, partly as a result of gloomy sentiment about the post-Brexit prospects of a bank almost solely focused on the UK economy.
On Monday, its shares closed down 1.5% at 58.57p, giving it a market value of £42.3bn.
Lloyds declined to comment ahead of Tuesday's jobs announcements.