A PAIR of taxpayer funded banks have announced plans to shed more than 1,700 jobs - with 70 to go in our area.

Lloyds Banking Group is cutting 1,300 jobs while Royal Bank of Scotland is axing 464 posts.

The 70 Lloyds posts - including 40 in Group IT - are based in Halifax.

Unions Unite and Accord said it was another "black day" for the finance industry and questioned why the Government was not intervening.

David Fleming, Unite national officer, said: "The announcement of 1,764 job cuts in these taxpayer-supported institutions today is truly brutal.

"How can there be any justification for the Government not intervening as these much needed jobs are lost from our struggling economy? To learn that 300 jobs are being transferred to a low wage economy adds insult to injury".

Lloyds said the job losses were part of a previously-announced strategic review and would affect group operations, executive functions, wholesale and insurance divisions.

The bank, which is 40% owned by the taxpayer, said it would work through the job losses with staff in a "careful and sensitive way" using natural turnover and redeployment where possible, adding: "Compulsory redundancies will always be a last resort."

Unite said RBS, which is 82% taxpayer funded, is to cut 464 staff from its Private Banking Direct by closing an office in Bristol and making cuts in other areas, including Leeds, Wimbledon and Edinburgh.

The job losses come after confirmation that two bank branches in Huddersfield town centre are to change hands next year.

The Cloth Hall Street branch of Lloyds TSB and the Ramsden Street branch of Cheltenham & Gloucester will become part of the new Verde bank at the end of 2013.