London - Britain's third biggest bank Barclays aims to accelerate a recovery in its UK retail banking operation with an 18-month plan that will see all its Woolwich branches rebranded as Barclays.
Barclays said on Wednesday that The Woolwich will become Barclays' UK banking mortgage product brand, moving in-store in all branches.
It said Woolwich and Barclays branches that are within 300 metres of each other, representing about 10 percent of the network, will be consolidated into a single premise.
Barclays said its back office operations will be streamlined and it will close sites in Bexleyheath, Kent, and Clacton, Essex, and a processing centre in Dudley, West Midlands.
It said the sites have a combined workforce of 1 203.
"With careful management of staff turnover and active steps to redeploy it is expected that the number of employees made redundant will be significantly fewer than this," Barclays said.
The bank said it expects the workforce of UK Retail Banking to remain broadly around its current number of 32 000.
Barclays, which said the change would happen gradually from February 2007, said the new approach was successfully tested in Aberdeen in Scotland last year.