Lloyds to Axe 9,000 Jobs and Shut Down Some Branches

Lloyds Banking Group is planning to axe more than 10% of its workforce over the next three years as part of CEO Antonio Horta-Osorio's strategic review of the business, according to media reports.

The bank, which employs 85,000 people, is likely to cut about 9,000 jobs in addition to the 45,000 redundancies announced since its near-collapse and bailout in 2008 and 2009. The company axed 30,000 jobs after the bailout, and announced a further 15,000 job cuts as part of a three-year plan in 2011.

A formal announcement of the job cut is expected to come on 28 October, along with the bank's latest financial results, according to BBC. As per the three-year plan, the bank will also shut down some of its branches.

The move stems from the recent shift of many customers from physical branches to online banking. Banking trade body BBA earlier said that digital banking transactions are now worth almost £1bn ($1.6bn, €1.3bn) a day, with almost 40 million mobile and internet banking transactions every week.

In addition, the bank's commitment to maintaining branch numbers as a condition of its takeover of HBOS in 2009 is expiring at the end of 2014.

The firm, which is 24% owned by the government, currently operates more than 2,000 branches across the UK through its remaining Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland and Halifax brands.

Lloyds has already disposed of more than 630 branches through its flotation of the TSB business earlier.

Horta-Osorio has been working hard to restructure the bank's operations ever since he was appointed as its head. Lloyds has returned to profitability under his stewardship.

Excluding charges related to the Libor scandal settlement and payment protection mis-selling, it made an underlying profit of £3.8bn in the first six months of 2014.