Small firms betrayed as Lloyds culls adviser jobs

LLOYDS Bank was accused of betraying small firms last night after sacking hundreds of business advisers – and leaving employers to get lending advice by phone.

The taxpayer-backed bank will axe half of its travelling small business relationship managers, hitting up to 120,000 firms in every part of the country.

From May, minnow companies and start-up firms will be left relying on phone banking or the internet to get in touch with the lender

Lloyds is already one of the worst culprits for choking off lending to small firms, despite taking part in a Government scheme designed to boost loans. Since June 2012 its cumulative net lending – the difference between the total amount of money handed out minus the total amount paid back by its customers – is minus £2.2billion, according to the Bank of England.

Critics said the latest move was further evidence that the lender had turned its back on the country’s smallest enterprises.

John Allan, of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: ‘Small firms have lost trust in their bank and much more needs to be done to repair the damage.

‘Thirty per cent of our members keep in touch with their bank through face-to-face meetings.

‘It is difficult to understand why Lloyds will only offer their smallest business customers help and advice by phone if their goal is to rebuilding trust and re-establish personal rela- tions with those firms.’ Lord Oakeshott, former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said: ‘That’s a giant step in the wrong direction by Lloyds. The smallest businesses need local bankers, not box-tickers, to understand their needs. The more of a bank we taxpayers own, the less they lend.’

The bank employs more than 1,000 small and medium-sized enterprise relationship managers.

But 560 of these will lose their jobs amid another round of redundancies costing 1,080 staff at the group, which is in the process of shedding 15,000 staff over several years. Another 300 staff will see their roles outsourced.

Of the 250,000 small and mid-sized firms on its books, the smallest 120,000 will no longer be able to get meetings with travelling relationship managers. They will still have access to branch staff ‘when they start up’, although the bank said its ‘specialist business managers’ will be based in a central office.

Lloyds defended the move, saying that smaller companies had ‘less complex needs’ than larger firms.

A spokesman said ‘This will help us cater more effectively for the needs of our clients – including many smaller firms that want to make more use of the telephone and internet to manage their day-to-day banking and the increasing number of start-ups we are helping to support.’

He added: ‘All of our clients will continue to have the support of specialist business managers and for our smallest clients, in addition to branch staff, managers based in our central teams. To underpin this reorganisation, we are investing in improved technology and services.

‘We want to ensure all our clients get the right level of support, whatever their size, sector, or location – and how ever they bank with us.’