Lloyds Banking Group is set to cut 780 jobs across its UK branches owing to reduced visits from customers amid increasing use of digital banking.
The affected roles, which represent 6% of the total workforce, will be across Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland branches.
The banking group will not close any branches or offices in relation to the job losses, reported The Sun.
Financial services union Accord said that the job cuts at the Lloyds Banking Group will apply to customer advisers, bank managers, and banking consultants in Lloyds Bank and Halifax. At the Bank of Scotland, the latest round of job losses will be restricted to only bank managers.
The latest wave of job cuts at Lloyds Banking Group will take place between June and October 2020.
As per Accord, the reductions in jobs at the banking group are because of the continued reduction in activity across branches with customers looking to perform their banking activities through other channels.
Accord’s Ged Nichols said: “The continuing loss of bank branches and the ‘hollowing out’ of those that remain puts major strains on the workforce who have less colleagues and managers to support them as they try to meet the broad range of issues that customers bring into branches these days.
“Branches are no longer about transactions. They’re about helping customers, especially those that are vulnerable, with more complex enquiries and problems. This requires an increasing skill set and we’d like the pay for branch staff to be increased accordingly.”
In January, Lloyds Banking Group announced closure of 56 branches
Last month, Lloyds Banking Group announced its plans to close an additional 56 branches across the UK between April and October 2020 citing the reasons like varying customer behaviour, increased digital transactions, and others. Accord at that time said that the branch closures would result in the layoff of less than 80 full-time roles with most of the impacted employees to be placed in other branches.
