Lloyds Bank 'set to axe thousands of staff'

State-backed Lloyds Banking Group is reportedly preparing to cut thousands more jobs and close branches as part of its "digitisation" strategy.

Jobs are expected to go in areas such as mortgage processing and new account processing, adding to more than 30,000 lost since the financial crisis, according to a report in The Times.

The cuts will come as work completed manually at the moment is computerised to reduce costs and improve customer services, it was claimed.

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Lloyds declined to comment. Chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio is due to unveil an update on his strategy this autumn. Lloyds publishes results for the third quarter on October 28.

The group remains 25%-owned by the taxpayer following its £20 billion rescue by the Government at the height of the financial crisis. It was 43%-owned by the Treasury but some of the stake has now been sold off.

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Earlier this year, Lloyds reported underlying profits up 32% to £3.8 billion for the first half, though its overall bottom-line profit fell because of a £1.1 billion hit from continuing "legacy issues", including the mis-selling of payment protection insurance.

Last week, the group said it had fired eight members of staff and withheld bonuses worth £3 million as part of disciplinary action in the wake of revelations about the rigging of benchmark interest rates.

The scandal included manipulation of interbank lending rate Libor as well as the benchmark repo rate, which was used to calculate fees due to the Bank of England for its support in the financial crisis.

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