Lloyds Bank: Axe hangs over branches

It will mean a worrying time for thousands of Lloyds staff across the region as they wait to hear where the jobs axe will fall.

The bank has branches across the Black Country, Staffordshire and north Worcestershire.

These are in Market Place, Cannock, Upper Brook Street, Rugeley, Market Street in Hednesford, Stone Cross Penkridge, Lichfield Road and Market Square in Stafford and The Square, Brewood.

The bank has branches in High Street, Dudley, Halesowen Road, Netherton, Dudley Street, Sedgley and High Street, Brierley Hill.

There are also branches in High Street, Lye, High Street, Stourbridge, Worcester Road, Hagley, Vicar Street, Kidderminster and High Street Cleobury Mortimer.

The bank has branches in High Street West Bromwich, Market Place, Great Bridge, Walsall Street in Wednesbury, High Street, Cradley Heath, High Street, Rowley Regis, High Street, Smethwick and Hagley Road West, Oldbury.

More branches are in Queen Square, Wolverhampton, Maypole Street, Wombourne, Church Street, Wednesfield, Stafford Road, Wolverhampton, High Street, Tettenhall and Station Road, Codsall.

And across Walsall there are branches at The Bridge, in Walsall, High Street, Aldridge, High Street, Bloxwich.

In addition to the branch network, the bank employs 1,800 at its operations centre on the Pendeford Business Park in Wolverhampton and hundreds more at its major offices in Colmore Row, in Birmingham.

While many staff will lose their jobs in the branch closures, the cuts will take place across the bank's UK operations over the next 18 months. It has not yet been decided which branches will close.

Fallout

The part state-backed bank said it was extending the cost-cutting programme it announced in 2014 and the 'expected lower for longer interest rate environment' will see the new cuts come into effect by the end of 2017.

The Bank of England is widely expected to cut interest rates from 0.5 per cent to 0.25 per cent next week as the fallout from the Brexit vote intensifies.

Lloyds is targeting £1.4 billion in cost savings by the end of next year.

The total number of jobs cut since the announcement of an efficiency drive in 2014 will stand at 12,000 by the end of next year.

The latest 200 branch closures come on top of another 200 already earmarked for closure at Lloyds, which is nine per cent owned by the Government.

The bank made the announcement alongside results for the first half of the year, which saw statutory profits more than double to £2.5bn, but the lender warned that Brexit could have an adverse impact on its future performance.

"Given the uncertainty, it is too early to determine the impact on our formal longer term guidance at this stage.

"However, while the business will remain highly capital generative, it is possible that this capital generation may be somewhat lower in future years than previously guided," the bank said.

Chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio added that, following the referendum, the outlook for the UK economy is 'uncertain' and a 'deceleration of growth seems likely'.

"The UK, however, enters this period of uncertainty from a position of strength, following continued private sector deleveraging, significantly improved mortgage affordability and low levels of unemployment," he said.

South Staffordshire MP Gavin Williamson said: "This is absolutely devastating news for so many families who are going to be directly affected, and also for the communities who will be worried about losing this vital link with their local branch. I only hope that alternative jobs can be found. I'd like to think that Lloyds could review this policy of so many job losses." Unions reacted with fury. Rob MacGregor, national officer at Unite, warned against 'cutting too far too fast' and said that the union would do everything in its power to oppose the cuts.

TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady urged the Government to act now to secure jobs and investment before 'thousands of working people pay the price of Brexit with the loss of their job'.

The distinctive cross-shaped Lloyds building on Pendeford Business Park was originally home to the Birmingham Midshires Building Society.

The society, with roots back to 1849, was the result of around 50 societies amalgamating over the years.

The final merger created the Birmingham Midshires in 1986 and it moved around 1,000 staff to its new £30 million, 180,000 sq ft headquarters in 1995.

Four years later the Midshires was taken over by Halifax, which then merged with Royal Bank of Scotland to create HBOS in 2001.

When the credit crunch hit in 2008 Lloyds rescued HBOS and the Pendeford offices became one of the bank's major operations centres.

In April this year the Unite union said jobs in Wolverhampton would be among 625 posts being axed by Lloyds in the UK.

These were part of the 9,000 announced in 2014. Lloyds would not confirm exactly how many jobs at Wolverhampton were involved.

Lloyds has also closed a number of bank branches in the area as part of the 200 closures announced in 2014, most recently the Netherton branch, in Halesowen Road.

This is due to shut in October because Lloyds has another branch just over a mile away in High Street, Dudley.