The move will affect 1,200 staff, though the bank will continue to offer protection as part of the mortgage sales process.

In total Lloyds is cutting 1,250 staff across retail, insurance, commercial banking, finance, group risk and group operations, as part of its strategic plan covering the period 2015-2017.

The bank said in a statement: “Lloyds Banking Group is committed to working through these changes with employees in a careful and sensitive way.

“The group’s policy is always to use natural turnover and to redeploy people wherever possible to retain their expertise and knowledge within the group.

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