Lloyds confirms 1,585 job cuts

Lloyds Banking Group has confirmed a net 1,585 roles in its retail, group operations, commercial banking, consumer finance, legal and finance teams will be axed as part of the 9,000 redundancies.

Lloyds, which is also closing 29 branches in this round of cuts, said 1,755 roles would be affected across the group as part of a three-year turnaround strategy announced in 2014.

The bank plans to add 170 new jobs in retail and commercial banking and in its legal team, which explans the net figure for job losses.

Lloyds said: “The group’s policy is always to use natural turnover and to redeploy people wherever possible to retain their expertise and knowledge within the group. Where it is necessary for employees to leave the company, it will look to achieve this by offering voluntary redundancy. Compulsory redundancies will always be a last resort.”

Chief executive António Horta-Osório originally planned the cuts as part of Lloyds' being fully privatised again.

However, Chancellor George Osborne last month said the planned share sale in the first quarter of 2016 would be shelved until stock market turbulence had abated.

Osborne said "now is not the right time" and that he would not give the go-ahead until the markets had calmed.