Lloyds Banking Group is to cut 650 jobs in the UK, with insurance and back office-based staff in Nottingham and Chester the hardest hit.
The bank will also close its network of Halifax-branded agencies, largely based in solicitors and estate agencies, as they are “no longer integral to its business model”, the BBC has reported.
This will hit more workers, who are not employed directly by Lloyds. Unions said 1,850 jobs would be affected.
“The scale of this cuts is extreme, the bank’s recovery plans are already well on course to deliver 30% higher than forecast savings,” said Cath Speight, national officer at the Unite union.
Lloyds, which is 41% owned by the UK government, has shed more than 17,700 staff and written off billions of pounds in bad debts since swallowing up Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) at the height of the financial crisis in 2008.
The group has forecast it would make a profit this year, despite making an operating loss of £6.3bn on bad loans in 2009.
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