The UK’s Lloyds Banking Group, which is reorganising its structure after acquiring rival UK banking firm HBOS, has announced it will cut 1,660 jobs but, at least for now, private banking roles are not thought to be at risk.

Lloyds is to close the Cheltenham & Gloucester branch network in November this year as the group removes some of the overlap from its business portfolio. After the closures, which will result in the loss of 928 jobs, C&G will instead focus on building its mortgage and savings direct and intermediary businesses, the firm said in a statement.

A further team of 159 intermediary sales personnel will lose their jobs when Bank of Scotland and Intelligent Finance cease to write new intermediary mortgage business. The other redundancies will arise from changes being made to retail products and support, personal loans, and Black Horse Personal Finance.

While job losses within private banking jobs are not yet on the horizon, they have not been ruled out. A Lloyds spokesperson told WealthBriefing that as the group’s restructure plays out “there will inevitably be some rationalisation of the workforce".

Last month, Lloyds TSB Private Banking saw the departure of its chief executive, Mark Cheshire, who had led the business since 2005. The group said it will not be appointing a replacement for Mr Cheshire, due to the ongoing restructure of its Wealth & International division.