Lloyds to cut 525 jobs and close two Black Country branches

Two branches are closing in the Dudley area. They are the Lloyds Bank branch in Halesowen Road, Netherton, along with a branch of the Halifax at Merry Hill in Wolverhampton.

Halifax and the Bank of Scotland are both owned by Lloyds Banking Group.

Lloyds, nine per cent owned by the taxpayer, said the cuts were part of 9,000 reductions announced in 2014.

A statement said 115 new roles will be created across the affected business areas.

"As part of our Group Strategic Review, we also announced 200 branch closures over the three-year period. Today we can confirm that we will be closing 23 branches during October 2016 as part of this strategy. Branches will continue to play an important role in our multi-channel approach to meeting customer needs and we expect to continue to have the biggest branch network in the UK.

"Lloyds Banking Group is committed to working through these changes with employees in a careful and sensitive way. All affected employees have been briefed by their line manager today.

"The Group's policy is always to use natural turnover and to redeploy people wherever possible to retain their expertise and knowledge.

"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."

Rob MacGregor, Unite's national officer, said 640 staff will lose their jobs under Wednesday's announcement.

"The continuation of the bank's major job loss programme will bring disappointment as staff feel they have already faced two years of endless workforce cuts. These latest job losses are to impact staff across the country.

"The union is calling on the bank to avoid compulsory redundancies with options for redeployment, job-swapping or voluntary redundancy wherever possible."