330 Jobs to Go by Year End

WOOLWICH PLC
20 October 1999


Woolwich plc has today taken a further step towards the delivery of its fully
integrated private banking service, Open Plan, with the announcement that the
company is to change its organisational structure and reduce the number of
management roles by some 13 per cent.

In total the changes will lead to 330 job losses across The Woolwich Group by
the year-end, representing 4.5 per cent of the total work force.  The majority
of the job losses will be in its head office.  The reductions will be achieved
by a combination of redundancy and natural wastage.  The exercise will cost
the organisation around 10 million pounds this year with anticipated cost
savings of more than 13 million pounds per year thereafter.


Contact details:
David Blake, Head of Corporate Communications Tel: [phone]
Raghnall Craighead, Group Investor Relations Manager Tel:[phone]