Lloyds boss: We will help 3,000 EU staff stay in the UK

LLOYDS Banking Group is working to help more than 3,000 staff stay in the UK if their right to work here is taken away as a result of Brexit.

Lloyds boss Antonio Horta-Osorio told The Mail on Sunday that the bank had identified around 5 per cent of its staff working in the UK came from elsewhere in the EU.

Horta-Osorio himself is Portuguese but has dual citizenship, meaning he will be unaffected.

He said: ‘We are going to support them as much as possible, we would like to have clarification as soon as possible.’

The rights of EU citizens not born in the UK are up in the air as part of the negotiations following the EU referendum vote.

While the Leave campaign was at pains to point out that people already working here would be allowed to stay, Prime Minister Theresa May’s Government has refused to make the same commitment until it is clear that UK citizens living in the EU will also be allowed to stay where they are. The Mail on Sunday revealed earlier this month that one FTSE chief executive had sought advice about officially obtaining permanent residence in the UK in the run-up to last month’s referendum vote.

Permanent residence status is a prerequisite to applying for British citizenship.

Business advisory firm KPMG said it had helped the unnamed chief executive of a FTSE100 blue-chip business. The firm has seen a tripling in demand for advice on immigration law since the vote.

Around one fifth of the top 100 UK-based firms – including Unilever and AstraZeneca – are run by bosses born elsewhere in the EU.

Separately, Lloyds was facing criticism from a union this weekend that it was ‘hounding’ staff over ‘minor rule breaches’. The Lloyds Trade Union, which describes itself as an ‘independent trade union’ which is not affiliated to the TUC, said in a newsletter that the bank has been disciplining staff for breaking rules on making transactions on their own bank accounts, or reimbursing one-off charges to colleagues at the bank.

‘The question is why the bank would waste massive amounts of resources on such an apparently trivial issue when simple coaching plans and informal warning would have done the job much more cheaply,’ the LTU said.

A bank spokesman said: ‘We are investigating a small number of branch colleagues for an internal process issue, highlighted by routine internal monitoring. As the investigation is ongoing, the details remain confidential at this time.’

The bank said last week it is cutting several thousand jobs and 200 branches as customers move to carrying out all of their banking transactions online.

BANK branches are disappearing from our high streets at a rate of knots. Closures last year were triple the number in 2013 – and this year they will beat all records.

Last week, despite a doubling of profits, Lloyds (still partly Stateowned) announced it would be axing 200 branches by the end of 2017 – on top of the 200 it earmarked for the chop in 2014, of which 48 have yet to close.

Although the banks and their apologists at the British Bankers’ Association argue these closures are in response to changing banking behaviour – more use of the internet and apps, less personal contact – you would need to possess a heart of steel not to feel for those communities who are to lose their Lloyds (or Halifax or Bank of Scotland) branch. Especially if it is the last bank standing.

When the last bank in town falls, it invariably sends a community into a tailspin, making it more difficult for local retail businesses to survive and for residents (especially the elderly) to do their banking.

The consequences may be unintentional – as far as the bank is concerned – but they are devastating. Hardly community friendly, hardly small business friendly. Hardly conducive to the maintaining of a robust economy which I would have thought was in the best interests of the banking industry.

Despite calls by the previous Coalition Government for the restoration of community values – and a half-baked attempt by Vince Cable, then Business Secretary, to make banks more accountable for closures – the fact remains that banks are dictating closures on their terms alone. Profit uber alles.

If your last bank in town is closing, and you feel angry about it, let us know.

Over the years, The Mail on Sunday has led the way with its coverage on closures and until the last branch is shut we will wave the flag for community values. ANOTHER banking gripe. The big banks hardly cover themselves in glory when it comes to serving the best interests of businesses, small and large.

So if I were a business customer of Royal Bank of Scotland, I would be seriously considering moving my money elsewhere following its threat to start applying negative interest rates to customers’ cash balances.

According to rate scrutineers at SavingsChampion, a limited company with £100,000 in NatWest Business Reserve is currently receiving a paltry 0.05 per cent in interest. A similar amount in Aldermore Easy Access Account (Issue 10) would attract 1.1 per cent – an increase over one year of £1,365.

A positive response to NatWest’s negativity I would say. I RARELY have the time of day for the Association of British Insurers, an organisation set up to defend everything its motley crew of members (insurance companies) do – good and bad.

Yet in producing a useful guide on life insurance for HIV sufferers, I am seeing it in a better light.

Currently, there are more than 100,000 people in the UK with HIV – nearly one in five unaware they are living with the virus.

The booklet, written in plain English (not something the insurance industry is renowned for), attempts to dispel some of the myths surrounding HIV and life insurance.

Namely that HIV sufferers are excluded from taking out insurance; existing cover is invalidated when someone is diagnosed with the illness; and that sufferers are duty bound to tell their insurer they have become HIV positive.

Apparently, more than 20 per cent of people cancel life cover following HIV diagnosis – a figure I find both astonishing and upsetting.

Informative though the guide is, it doesn’t state that most insurers will not offer an HIV sufferer cover for more than ten years.

Even then, they will have to pay through the nose for it dependent upon how high their viral load score is (particles of HIV in a millilitre of blood) and how low their CD4 count is (this indicates how many healthy white blood cells you have fighting against possible infections).

In most cases, premiums cost three to four times the norm.

The Terrence Higgins Trust has done much to raise awareness of HIV issues. The charity says the guide is a ‘welcome tool’ for those who do not understand their full rights in relation to life insurance.

Let’s hope it inspires the association on to more consumerfriendly initiatives – for example, requiring insurers to simplify policy documents and to spell out how people should go about applying for cover when they have a pre-existing medical condition – not just HIV.

When the last bank in town falls, it sends the community into a tailspin