STAFF at Lloyds TSB are facing high levels of customer dissatisfaction about the bank's policy of transferring work to India, a union claimed last night.

A survey of nearly 2,000 branch managers and staff found that 96 per cent of people thought customers were not happy dealing with staff in India, while 83 per cent thought customers received worse service as a result.

More than half of staff claimed they received complaints or adverse comments about the Indian operation every day, and a further third of people said they received them at least every week.

Lloyds TSB closed its Newcastle call centre last year in order to offshore work to India, with the loss of about 900 UK jobs.

Nearly two-thirds of those questioned reported seeing significantly more errors and mistakes being made by the Indian operation, and 64 per cent said offshoring had made it more difficult to promote the bank's products.

About 85 per cent of staff thought the bank would lose many customers because of its decision to offshore work to India, while a similar proportion thought people would be likely to switch to financial services companies that were committed to the UK, according to the Lloyds TSB Group Union.

But the union said Lloyds TSB was ignoring these concerns and continuing to transfer back office processing and telephone operations abroad.

A Lloyds TSB spokeswoman said: "We have found that levels of customer satisfaction are as high on calls to India as to the UK."