LLOYDS TSB said it was on track to make further earnings progress next year, despite becoming the latest bank to report a slowdown in consumer borrowing.

The bank, which transferred its Newcastle call centre operations to Mumbai, India, last month, with the loss of 1,000 jobs in the region, said it continued to deliver good earnings and expected to report a satisfactory trading performance for the year to December 31.

Its retail bank continued to make progress in profitable franchise development despite, some slowdown in the demand for consumer credit.

Last week, Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC said they had seen a weakening in lending to consumers.

Lloyds will also set aside an extra £110m to cover any ongoing liabilities relating to past sales and performance of endowment policies.

It said: "Despite this provision, Lloyds TSB expects to report earnings broadly in line with current market expectations."

Lloyds said last month that it planned to transfer another 1,000 jobs from the UK to India by the end of next year.

The group said it was confident it could achieve the transfers through natural wastage and redeployment of UK staff to other roles.

In July, it blamed the sale of overseas businesses for a seven per cent fall in half-year profits to £1.56bn.

The result - in line with market expectations - masked a solid performance in the UK, where key product areas, such as mortgages and credit card balances grew strongly. Its Scottish Widows operation continued to refocus its products towards more profitable and capital-efficient products and had launched a range of products more tailored to the branch distribution network during the past few months.

All main businesses within the bank's wholesale and international banking division continued to perform well and a good increase in profitable new business in corporate businesses, business banking and asset finance had been achieved.