Lloyds cuts risk management roles in bid to 'move at greater pace'

Lloyds is cutting risk management jobs after concluding that its overly cautious approach is holding back growth.

Roles are to be cut after a review conducted by the bank concluded that internal risk structures were acting as a “blocker” to change.

Chief executive Charlie Nunn is seeking to overhaul Lloyds by cutting costs and driving up sales as the environment becomes harder for UK banks this year.

However, a survey of staff which was first reported by the Financial Times found that two-thirds of senior executives said the way Lloyds assessed risks was holding back Mr Nunn’s shake-up plan.

A poll of all staff also found that less than 50pc thought “intelligent risk-taking” was encouraged at the bank.

Lloyds operates a self-described “three lines of defence” risk model, where three separate layers of management review non-financial risks such as compliance with regulation.

Managers on the ground have primary responsibility for this, with extra oversight provided by two departments above them, the risk division and Group Internal Audit.

The shake-up will see 45 jobs removed from these risk teams, equivalent to around 1.5pc of the 3,600 people who work in risk jobs for Lloyds.

The job losses are the result of a wider reshuffle within Lloyds’ risk function and other parts of the business announced in March. In total about 175 roles will be axed.

This will be offset by the creation of 130 new roles focused on specialist risk management, leaving 45 fewer jobs overall.

The changes will help the bank in “resetting our approach to risk and controls” and enable Lloyds to “move at greater pace”, according to an internal memo seen by the Financial Times.

Mr Nunn has been ramping up the pace of change at the bank after setting out a turnaround plan in February 2022.

He hopes to kickstart growth by focusing on wealth management and insurance products for the mass affluent alongside core banking and saving products.

Mr Nunn is also seeking to improve profits by trimming costs. As part of the overhaul, thousands of middle-management jobs were put at risk of redundancy last year.

Like other banks, Lloyds expects to face more challenging conditions in the year ahead with the expectation that interest rates will soon begin falling. This will lead to lower levels of net interest income, the big driver of Lloyds’ profits. 

Lloyds is the UK’s most valuable domestic bank, and the largest mortgage lender in the country thanks to its Halifax brand.

A Lloyds spokesman said: “Making changes means not only creating new roles and upskilling colleagues in some parts of the business, but also having to say goodbye to talented colleagues who have been a part of the group’s success in the past.

“Where that is unfortunately the case, we will do everything we can to support them with the changes recently announced. In this case, there are around 45 role reductions, after new roles being created are factored in.”