Cheltenham & Gloucester branches to close

by Gill Montia

Story link: Cheltenham & Gloucester branches to close

Lloyds TSB is reported to be closing 31 branches of its Cheltenham & Gloucester business, with the loss of 340 jobs.

Lloyds, which has 2,000 branches and is the UK’s fifth largest bank, acquired Cheltenham & Gloucester in 1995.

In addition, the bank plans to outsource work carried out by IT staff at its London, Cardiff and Manchester offices. One hundred permanent and 110 contract positions could be transferred overseas.

The bank was one of the first to outsource work overseas and opened its Indian call centre, in Mumbai, in 2004.

However, it has recently started to repatriate many frontline customer account inquiry services. There are even plans for customers to be able to call their local branch direct.

Latest research suggests that the number of bank and building society branches has fallen by nearly 11% in the past five years.

In 2002 there were 11,640 branches in the UK, but the figure had fallen to 10,423 by 2007.

In terms of population, in 2002, there were 2.13 branches to every 10,000 people, but the figure now stands at 1.88 per 10,000.

Cost cutting measures and the increasing popularity of Internet banking the usual reasons cited for branch closures.