Lloyds to cut more than 900 jobs

More than 900 jobs are being axed by Lloyds Banking Group as it continues to adapt to changing customer habits.

The bank is creating more than 450 new roles which leaves a net loss at 465 posts across five of the bank's divisions.

A spokesperson for Lloyds said that the affected employees had been briefed about the changes at the end of January.

They said the that bank's policy was to redeploy staff wherever possible.

But it would also be looking for voluntary redundancies to achieve the staff reduction, the spokesperson said in a statement.

Lloyds announced last year that it planned to shrink the size of some of its branches, including some Halifax and Bank of Scotland sites because customers were increasingly using online banking rather than the High Street.

The cuts are "within commercial banking, the chief information office, risk, community banking and insurance and wealth".

"Where it is necessary for employees to leave the company, we will look to achieve this by offering voluntary redundancy. Compulsory redundancies will always be a last resort," the spokesperson said.

"This process involved making difficult decisions, and we are committed to working through these changes in a careful and sensitive way," the Lloyds spokesperson said in a statement.