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Lloyds Bank subsidiary Halifax will be ‘largely immune’ to job losses affecting parent

Halifax, the Yorkshire-based subsidiary of Lloyds Bank, which recently announced that 150 branches are to close and 9,000 jobs will be axed, will remain ‘largely immune’ to the cuts.

Halifax employs 5,000 in Halifax, 1,000 in Leeds and 500 in Sheffield, and has said it intends to keep all of its 663 branches open, according to the Yorkshire Post.

However it is not certain how the Lloyds redundancies will pan out, with many predicting that West Yorkshire is a key target area for the bank, and intends to target towns with more than one branch in its cut down.

Lloyds said that more than 10 million of its customers now bank online while five million use its mobile banking services.

The group saw a 9% fall in branch use last year as more people turned to the internet to carry out their day-to-day banking.

Finance director George Culmer said of the pledge to keep branches open: “That was a specific commitment we made over the last planned period. We won’t be able to commit to that going forward.”

Halifax’s managing director David Nicholson said: “Halifax is in good shape. Roles will change but that doesn’t mean there will be job losses. We remain committed to retraining people.”

Commenting on the situation, trade union organisation Unite’s national officer Rob MacGregor said: “These are deeply unsettling times for Lloyds staff, who after days of speculation and leaks face yet another round of job cuts and a future of uncertainty.

“Job cuts of approximately 10% could have unknown consequences on customer service and will put even more pressure on staff who have helped get the bank back on the right track.

“The wallets of top executives at Lloyds should not be getting fat by forcing low paid workers onto the dole. If there are compulsory redundancies or customer service suffers then executive pay should be cut.

“Over the coming days we will be pressing Lloyds for clarity and for guarantees over no compulsory redundancies.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .