Barclays, Britain's third-largest bank, has outlined plans to axe as many as 1,200 jobs over the next two years as part of an overhaul of the group's underperforming retail banking arm. Technology upgrades will result in the closure of three processing sites at Bexleyheath in Kent, Clacton in Essex, and Dudley in the West Midlands, with the potential loss of 1,203 call centre and back office staff.
However, Barclays added that it expected the total number of staff taking redundancy to be "significantly fewer" than this, but did not disclose precisely how many jobs would go.
The bank also added that it would rebrand branches of home loan-lending unit Woolwich under the Barclays name, but would start selling Woolwich-branded mortgages across its entire branch network.
As part of the overhaul, Woolwich and Barclays premises that are within 300 metres of each other -- some 10 percent of the whole network -- will be consolidated into a single branch. Barclays acquired Woolwich in 2000.
"Results in UK retail banking have shown pleasing signs of progress and we have reported a period of sustained income growth," Deanna Oppenheimer, head of British retail banking said in a statement.
"However, as we have already made clear, our aim is to accelerate the development of UK Retail Banking toward our objective to be the best bank in the UK."
