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Lloyds in job cull

October 28, 2014

British lender Lloyds has confirmed reports that it will cut thousands of jobs to save costs over the next couple of years. The partly nationalized bank said the move was part of a plan to become more profitable.

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Lloyds logo
Image: Reuters/Stefan Wermuth

The UK's state-rescued Lloyds Banking Group announced Tuesday it was planning to cut 9,000 more jobs by the end of 2017 to reduce costs.

"We anticipate the reduction of 9,000 full-time roles and plan to make further simplification savings of 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion, 1.27 billion euros) per annum by the end of 2017," the bank said in a statement.

Lloyds explained simplification procedures would entail focusing on in-house digitalization and online banking for consumers.

Lender on the mend

The group said the changes ahead would also require the closure of 150 branches over the same period.

Lloyds, 25 percent of which is owned by taxpayers, has already axed some 33,000 jobs since the 2008 global financial crisis that triggered a multi-billion-pound state bailout.

Also on Tuesday, the bank reported third-quarter earnings of 693 million pounds, a huge jump from the 1.3 billion-pound loss logged in the same period a year earlier. Analysts said the Q3 profit was in no small way driven by a booming national economy.

But the lender was the worst performing British bank in a European stress test. It faces a further test by the Bank of England in December which will measure its resilience against scenarios including a 35 percent decline in housing prices and a rise in interest rates to 6 percent.

hg/cjc (AFP, dpa, Reuters)