The kind of invasive data trawling techniques used on 36,000 staff in grades A-C to justify pay increases for 2026 and 2027 is set to be rolled out externally and monetised as part of the Bank’s new technology strategy which will be announced by Mr. Charlie Nunn, Group Chief Executive, in July. Consultants, like McKinsey, call it creating ‘intelligence at scale’. And Lloyds wants to be a key player.
A report seen by BTU entitled ‘Technology Strategy 3.0’ talks about: “data products commercialised externally creating new avenues for growth beyond banking.”. It’s part of the Bank’s new key strategic priority to grow beyond traditional banking. Lloyds has 23 million digitally active users who log on 7 billion times a year. The key is turning the large amounts of raw data it generates daily into actionable intelligence Lloyds can monetise at scale. So, for example, in future Lloyds could identify all customers who receive monthly NHS salaries and create aggregated and anonymised data about their spending habits. Lloyds could then sell that data to NHS management who in turn could use it to tell nurses, doctors, consultants and other health professional they don’t need salary increases because they are financially resilient. Can you imagine what would happen if Lloyds did that? Its customer base would go from 23 million to 3 million in a matter of weeks. But that’s what it could do.
In the same way staff felt their personal accounts had been ransacked to suit the intertest of Lloyds, imagine how customers would feel knowing their personal, financial data is being leveraged by their Bank for profit. The ethical and trust implications of Lloyds using its customer data for profit are something that the ICO, FCA and MPs need to think about very carefully. We intend to make sure they do.
Lloyds is also looking to reduce its technology spend by 35% (approximately £1 billion) by 2028, closing 15 legacy data centres and creating two new strategic data centres by the end of 2027. Lloyds will also be looking to move 75% of Platform staff into tech and data job families. We expect that to result in a rapid increase in the number of UK jobs being moved to the Lloyds Technology Centre in India. It’s grown from nothing to 4755 full time staff in just a few years. In terms of employment, it’s now the fastest growing part of Lloyds. How that equates to ‘Helping Britain Prosper’ deserves another Newsletter of its own.
The question for Lloyds is whether its strategic direction is deliverable? We will discuss that in more detail in our next Newsletter. However, here’s a little taster to whet the appetite. A recent GCOO Internal Data Report, which was seen by Mr. Nunn and Group Executive Committee, says that there are:
“several challenges within our current reporting environment: a) we proliferate reporting and data; b)we have no clear ownership of reporting products; c) we lack clarity on the key outcomes we are trying to drive; d) we have no strategic approach to golden sources of internal data; e) we have limited guidance and standards for how to create internal reporting products.”.
Does that read like an organisation on top of its own data let alone that produced by its customers? Equally, does it read like an organisation that’s set to become the preeminent “UK focused digital leader”? We think not.
We will be returning to this issue again in our next Newsletter. In the meantime, members with any questions can contact the Union’s Bedford Office on 01234 262868 (Choose Option 1).
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