Lloyds TSB – the fifth largest bank and provider of UK current accounts in the country – is bringing back its call centres to the UK after heeding customers’ dissatisfaction over the current operation in India.

Back office work will still be carried out in the Mumbai centre, but customer calls – running at 2.25 million a month – will now be answered at the bank’s 10 UK call centres and the phone numbers of individual branches made available to customers.

Lloyds TSB claimed that phone calls were only diverted to India when all of its UK network was busy and that an automatic call-handling system had cut the amount of callers who needed to speak one-to-one with an operator.

But Lloyds TSB Group Union – representing many staff at the bank – said that outsourcing calls to India had been a “costly failure” and welcomed the return of the work, much of which involves queries about customers’ UK current accounts, to the UK.

Indian call centres were becoming unpopular with UK customers and other firms like Powergen have brought the work back home.

A survey undertaken by YouGov found that just 4% of people have a good experience when they dial up a call centre, with more than 50% saying that overseas centres irk them.

Sally Jones-Evans, managing director of telephone banking at Lloyds TSB, said: “We listen to our customers, especially when it comes to their getting advice on their UK current accounts, and we do appreciate that there are times when it makes sense for them to get straight through to their branches.”