London - Lloyds Banking Group will cut thousands of staff and close more branches as Britain's largest retail lender adopts a "digitisation" strategy and automates its entire business, the Times newspaper reported on Monday.

Jobs are expected to go in areas such as mortgage processing and new account opening as work completed manually at the moment is computerised to reduce costs and improve customer service, the paper said in its online edition.

The digital strategy will form the centrepiece of a three-year plan to be unveiled alongside the bank's third-quarter financial results on October 28, the paper added.