Last Thursday chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio said he plans to make the cuts felt mainly through middle management and make the bank simpler and more agile. Lloyds’ investors applauded the plan.
"The bank has lost money and is losing money as you saw in Q1, and we have to get this bank back on its feet to support the U.K. economy and to get it profitable in order to pay taxpayers' money back," Horta-Osorio told reporters.
Lloyds is Europe's seventh biggest bank by market value. The latest job cuts will add to 27,000 that have occurred since the 2008 financial crisis. It employs 103,000 staff.
The cost of the program will be 2.3 billion pounds, says a Reuters report, but the savings garnered will allow the bank to invest an extra 2 billion pounds in its UK retail banking.
Lloyds strength has been in domestic retail banking, and Horta-Osorio confirmed that the organization will reduce its international presence to fewer than 15 countries from 30, with the goal of focusing more on that sector.
