A SE­NIOR banker at bailed-out Lloyds TSB has quit fol­low­ing claims that mil­lions of pounds was chan­nelled to com­pa­nies set up by a pair of young In­dian men he be­friended.

An­drew Tay­lor, 46, re­signed cit­ing ‘ill health’ as au­di­tors were sent in to probe the ac­counts of a firm con­trolled by the two col­leagues.

The Bri­tish ex­ec­u­tive, jointly re­spon­si­ble for more than 2,000 Lloyds em­ploy­ees in In­dia, al­legedly in­stalled the two em­ploy­ees into well-paid posts in which they were ‘ef­fec­tively writ­ing cheques to them­selves’.

Em­bar­rass­ingly for the bank – which is 43 per cent owned by the tax­payer – the al­leged mul­ti­mil­lion pound racket was go­ing on while Lloyds was sack­ing thou­sands of Bri­tish work­ers to cut costs.

Em­bar­rass­ingly for the bank – which is 43 per cent owned by the tax­payer – the al­leged mul­ti­mil­lion pound racket was go­ing on while Lloyds was sack­ing thou­sands of Bri­tish work­ers to cut costs.

Mr Tay­lor, Lloyds head of off­shore op­er­a­tions in Ban­ga­lore, is al­leged to have ap­pointed Vi­jay Bhaskar and Raj Ku­mar to run the fa­cil­i­ties depart­ment, re­spon­si­ble for award­ing con­tracts to In­dian com­pa­nies, above more ex­pe­ri­enced Bri­tish col­leagues.

The two men are al­leged to have started pay­ing tens of thou­sands of pounds to a Ban­ga­lore firm called Pro­fes­sional Touch which supplied rented apart­ments for Lloyds ex­ec­u­tives, plus driv­ing and clean­ing ser­vices.

But un­known to the bank, this com­pany was owned by 29-yearold Mr Bhaskar. All the pay­ments were said to have been sanc­tioned by Mr Tay­lor.

Mr Tay­lor was de­scribed as be­ing close friends with the men, and to have shared a ho­tel room with Mr Bhaskar on hol­i­day at EuroDis­ney.

He lav­ished treats on sev­eral male em­ploy­ees, and posed in dozens of pho­to­graphs with his arms around them. He also hosted a se­ries of ‘rau­cous’ par­ties at his beach house in the re­sort of Goa.

A source at the bank’s of­fices on the Bag­mane Tech Park said: ‘Bhaskar made no se­cret of the fact that he used to be a street boy. He started off as a driver for Lloyds then caught An­drew’s eye

‘Told his mates to claim more’

And was moved in to be­come the fa­cil­i­ties man­ager along­side Ku­mar.

‘They were given more power than bet­ter qual­i­fied staff, but that wasn’t enough. Some­one blew the whis­tle over Bhaskar and Pro­fes­sional Touch, where he was ba­si­cally writ­ing out cheques to him­self.’

‘They were given more power than bet­ter qual­i­fied staff, but that wasn’t enough. Some­one blew the whis­tle over Bhaskar and Pro­fes­sional Touch, where he was ba­si­cally writ­ing out cheques to him­self.’

Pro­fes­sional Touch won the con­tract to work with Lloyds un­op­posed, it is un­der­stood.

The gen­eral man­ager of the com­pany con­firmed to an un­der­cover re­porter that it leased around 20 prop­er­ties to Lloyds f or be­tween £ 2,000-£ 6,000 a month. He said they had been do­ing so for the past four years.

As­sum­ing an av­er­age leas­ing charge of £4,000 a month, the turnover from the prop­er­ties alone over four years is around £4mil­lion.

Mr Tay­lor, who still has the use of a Lloyds TSB com­pany flat and mo­bile phone while he works his no­tice, is also al­leged to have presided over a lax ex­penses cul­ture in which some work­ers were pock­et­ing hun­dreds of pounds with­out hav­ing to pro­duce re­ceipts.

Mr Tay­lor, who still has the use of a Lloyds TSB com­pany flat and mo­bile phone while he works his no­tice, is also al­leged to have presided over a lax ex­penses cul­ture in which some work­ers were pock­et­ing hun­dreds of pounds with­out hav­ing to pro­duce re­ceipts.

One worker claimed: ‘Af­ter the bail-out, pay rises were frozen and man­agers were in­structed to keep a tight rein on ex­penses. But all An­drew did was tell his mates to claim more to make up for los­ing out on pay rises.’

Lloyds has come un­der fire for re­plac­ing UK staff with cheaper In­dian labour in the wake of its bail-out by the UK tax­payer. The bulk of the In­dian work­ers, who earn sig­nif­i­cantly less than their UK coun­ter­parts, help run the bank’s com­puter sys­tems and pay­ment pro­cess­ing arm.

Asked about the al­le­ga­tions, Mr Tay­lor con­firmed that he had left Lloyds TSB last month due to ill health but de­clined to com­ment fur­ther.

A spokesman for the bank said: ‘We can con­firm that we have been in­ves­ti­gat­ing al­le­ga­tions of pro­fes­sional mis­con­duct within a small and non-cus­tomer fac­ing team based in Ban­ga­lore.’

A spokesman for the bank said: ‘We can con­firm that we have been in­ves­ti­gat­ing al­le­ga­tions of pro­fes­sional mis­con­duct within a small and non-cus­tomer fac­ing team based in Ban­ga­lore.’