UK bank Lloyds TSB has hired 1,000 staff for its corporate banking division last year in a drive to expand its portfolio of financial services offerings in the commercial sphere.
Chief executive of Lloyds’ wholesale and international banking division Truett Tate told the Financial Times that he had recruited the extra people in an attempt to upgrade Lloyds’ operations and make the bank more competitive.
The bank wants to offer corporate clients larger loans and more complex financial products such as interest rate swaps, the newspaper reports.
Mr Tate told the newspaper that the costs of hiring were being monitored tightly and the growth in revenue would more than make up for the outlay. Other UK banks such as Barclays and HSBC are also turning to small and medium sized business services as retail banking becomes less profitable in a climate of consumer bad debt.