TSB staff share £28m bonus pot

Nearly 8000 TSB staff are set to share £28 million after a third year of growth at the challenger bank.

The news came as the bank, which was spun-out of bailed-out Lloyds Banking Group in 2013, said yesterday that statutory pre-tax profit had surged 169 per cent to £182 million in 2016 from £67.6 million a year earlier, amid an 11.4 per cent jump in lending to £29.4 billion, and a 13.6 per cent rise in customer deposits, which also reached £29.4 billion.

New clients have also flocked to the bank and it now has more than five million customers as people ditch traditional High Street lenders.

TSB also made £6.6 billion of new mortgage loans last year, up from £4.8 billion in 2015.

The bank has a strong capital position with Tier One equity of 18.4 per cent.

Chief executive Paul Pester is among the staff to benefit from the consequent bonus award, though he and senior directors get paid in shares not cash, and enjoy other sizeable incentives.

The payout, equivalent to 12.5 per cent of basic salary or six weeks pay, will reach TSB’s 7,700 employees’ bank accounts on 20 March.

The bonus pot is a £2.5 million rise on the award last year, or 10 per cent.

It comes as the bank is still negotiating its separation from Lloyds’s IT system, which it plans to leave to migrate to its own platform built by Banco de Sabadell – which took over the company in 2015 – later this year.

Mr Pester said: “When we launched TSB back in 2013, we set out to do our bit to break the stranglehold of the big five banks and bring a different sort of banking to the UK.

“Three years on, we’ve shown that a bank focused on serving local communities can really thrive. We’ve grown at twice the pace we aspired to back in 2014. More people chose TSB than ever before in 2016 and we are now Britain’s most recommended high street bank.”

A statement from the bank added: “While we continue to be confident in the strength of the UK economy, we are mindful of the challenges ahead.

“Most commentators predict that economic and market conditions are likely to remain uncertain for a range of reasons, including the UK’S exit from the EU and as the form and impact of this takes time to become clear.”