Lloyds TSB, the UK's fifth largest bank, has followed the Royal Bank of Scotland Group in entrusting its mail delivery to one of Royal Mail's main competitors. RBS handed a slice of business to UK Mail in March.
The year-long contract is expected to cover roughly 100m items of mail and takes TNT's expected volume for 2005 to more than 500m items. The bank has around 16m customers.
It will be using TNT's UK Premier service, offering collection and delivery in 48 hours. VAT applies to the part of the delivery service provided by TNT Mail, but not to the final mile delivery provided by Royal Mail.
Nick Wells, managing director of TNT Mail UK, called the contract a major win.
"It demonstrates that our offer of innovative systems, an enterprising approach and competitive pricing is attractive to customers and we look to grow market share in other sectors," he said.
TNT is providing a service improvement for the bank by tracking the mail it handles from collection to the point of handover to Royal Mail.
Phil Cresswell, head of supplier management at Lloyds TSB said TNT was selected for its ability to deliver on its promises and its heritage of excellent customer service.
The bank already had a long-standing relationship with TNT Mail's sister company, TNT Managed Services, to distribute internal mail between branches.
Having signed a downstream access agreement with Royal Mail in April 2004, TNT has won clients including Sky, Caudwell Communications, Express Gifts and Booker.
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