Lloyds plans to cut as many as 1,000 jobs across six divisions

Lloyds is gearing up to eliminate about 1,000 jobs over six divisions as chief executive officer Antonio Horta-Osorio sets the wheels in motion for a full-scale makeover of Britain's biggest mortgage lender.

Lloyds, one of the UK's "big four" banks, let staff know in January that most cutbacks would come out of its commercial banking, chief information office, risk, community banking, insurance and wealth divisions, but added that in time, it eventually planned to add as many as 465 positions back into the businesses.

"Where it is necessary for employees to leave the company, we will look to achieve this by offering voluntary redundancy," a spokeswoman for Lloyds told Bloomberg in a statement.

"Compulsory redundancies will always be a last resort," the statement continued.

Several analysts anticipate Horta-Osorio's overhaul plans to lean heavily on further cost reductions and technological investments as more and more customers start to make the move into online banking, after a set of announcements back in November revealed that the lender would be closing branches under the Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Lloyds names throughout 2018.

As of 1610 GMT, shares had lost 0.84% to 68.19p.