Lloyds axes a further 300 jobs

Lloyds Banking Group has announced it will cut 300 call centre job within its retail, wholesale, wealth and international operations divisions.

The redundancies do not include any back-office IT roles.

The roles will be lost as the group closes its Bridgend call centre, but the bank said some staff would be redeployed to call centres in Swansea and Newport.

The group's recognised unions LTU and Unite were consulted prior to the announcement and will continue to be consulted throughout the process.

The move follows an earlier cut of 325 back-office jobs within the group's wholesale and group operations divisions in April this year.

The bank, of which 41 per cent is owned by the tax payer, said this recent reduction in staff was part of its ongoing integration programme with HBOS, which it acquired in late 2008.