Almost 1,000 people work at the call centre

Last week, Lloyds TSB announced it was closing its customer contact centre in Newcastle where almost 1,000 people work.

The bank is moving some of its services to Bangalore in India.

The finance union Unifi says its members at the call centre will be told on Monday they will get the chance to vote on strike action.

Bernadette Fisher, Unifi's national officer, said: "The thing we are fighting for is to stop the closure.

Considerable discussion

"That would be the ideal move from here, that we would make it so clear to Lloyds TSB that it was not worth going through the closure in terms of the impact on the staff and critically on customers and their response would be that they would decide not to close it."

A Lloyds TSB spokeswoman said the decision to close the centre had been made after considerable discussion. She said they had a responsibility to run the business competitively.

The company has said it aims to manage any reduction in jobs through natural staff turnover and redeploying staff elsewhere within the group.

The call centre is due to close by the end of next year.