Update: Speculation mounts around Lloyds TSB group CIO

Lloyds TSB has responded to mounting online speculation that its group CIO Darryl West is about to leave the bank to join IT giant HP by issuing a belated denial.

More than 24 hours after initially refusing to comment on the rumours a spokesperson for Lloyds Banking Group has made it clear that Darryl West has not been in discussions with Hewlett Packard and has no plans to leave Lloyds Banking Group.

West joined Lloyds TSB in March 2005, and became group CIO in 2006. During the reshuffling of roles following the merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS at the end of 2008, he was promoted to the position of group CIO of the Lloyds Banking Group, reporting to director of group IT and operations Mark Fisher.

Prior to Lloyds, West held a number of roles at a number of financial services companies, including National Australia Group (Europe), Accenture, and JP MorganChase. He has degrees in Commerce and Computer Science from Deakin University, Australia.

Lloyds TSB appears on the HP Enterprise Services’s website as a client, and the HP website also features a case study video of how Lloyds TSB used its HP Blade Workstations in its new trading facility.

Lloyds Banking Group recently predicted a pre-tax loss of £3.4 billion in the first quarter, despite continuing to make good progress with its IT and business integration programme.

This comes just few months after the bank reported an impressive turnaround in profit for its 2010 financial report, which was driven in part by cost savings achieved through consolidation of its IT.

The bank has so far cut 22,000 jobs in two years, according to trade union Unite’s figures, with the most recent reduction made in April of 325 back office jobs.