Uncertainty over Lloyds closures

UNCERTAINTY looms over Birmingham’s high street banking sector after Lloyds announced plans to close around 200 branches and shed 3,000 jobs.

The group has not yet revealed which branches will close but the group operates more than 25 alone in Birmingham as well as Bank of Scotland and Halifax outlets.

In 2014, it announced plans to close up to 200 branches, with 175 of those expected to be shut by the end of October, including in Selly Oak, Wylde Green and Studley, which ceased operations this week, and Hall Green which closed in June.

Last week the bank revealed it wanted to shut a further 200 branches by the end 2017 – although it is not saying at this stage where they will be.

The bank, which is still part owned by the taxpayer, said the cost-cutting programme would be extended and the “expected lower for longer interest rate environment” will see the new cuts come into effect by the end of 2017.

The Bank of England is widely expected to cut interest rates from 0.5 per cent to 0.25 per cent next week as the fallout from the Brexit vote intensifies.

Lloyds is targeting £1.4 billion in cost savings by the end of next year.

A Lloyds Banking Group spokesperson said: “We expect to close branches across Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland and Halifax.

“There will be no regional focus – we will continue to follow our customers in terms of how, when and where they decide to bank with us. While we are reducing our network, we expect to continue to have the biggest branch network in the UK.

“Even after these further closures, more than 90 per cent of our customers will have a branch within five miles of them.”

The bank made the announcement alongside results for the first half of the year, which saw statutory profits more than double to £2.5 billion, but the lender warned that Brexit could have an adverse impact on its future performance.

Lloyds said: “Given the uncertainty, it is too early to determine the impact on our formal longer term guidance at this stage.

“However, while the business will remain highly capital generative, it is possible that this capital generation may be somewhat lower in future years than previously guided.”

Lloyds had its origins in Birmingham when, in 1765, button maker John Taylor and Quaker iron producer Sampson Lloyd II set up a banking business in Dale End. The first Lloyds branch office opened in Oldbury in 1864.