Jobs in the West will be under threat as a result of the turmoil in the financial markets in the past week, according to one of the region's leading experts.

Mike Warburton, a Gloucestershire resident and senior partner with Grant Thornton, believes while the speculation about cuts at HBOS, Lloyds TSB and its Cheltenham and Gloucester subsidiary is justified, another major player in the financial services industry in the West could be about to take a major hit.

"HBOS was one of those weak banks bowing really heavily to housing market movements in the UK. Its share price got knocked and, well, who are the losers? The answer is shareholders in HBOS.

"The winner is Lloyds bank. It has bought something it could never have bought at any price because of the Competition Commission's concerns with the Government's blessing, at a good price.

"It has come in and it has bought the biggest mortgage lender in the UK, the Halifax. You add that on to C&G and that makes it absolutely dominant in the mortgage market in the UK.

"And while it is a bit of a strange market at the moment it will recover and Lloyds bank will finish up as the dominant force in the UK mortgage market. They simply could not have done that a month again."

Other losers from the week's events will be companies which had money tied up in the bankrupt US investment bank Lehman Brothers.

He said: "The biggest single investor in Lehman Brothers is AXA, which has its UK headquarters in Bristol. So although it does not mean that AXA itself is in jeopardy, it does mean that a lot of the funds that AXA manages will perform less well and it does mean that confidence in AXA's management of its business could be put under question and that would be bound to have some knock-on effect on AXA as a body and in terms of jobs.

"If we get this merger going ahead we have got HBOS with a big operation down in Bristol right next door to Lloyds. And we have C&G here in Gloucester. The big question is what does this mean for people working in jobs in those two locations?

"I think you have to put a question mark over jobs. The directors will be looking for where there is overlap and where they can cut cost.

"The proposed outcome is for the business to be called Lloyds TSB and all the key directors will be the Lloyds TSB people. So the power lies with Lloyds TSB. It is not a merger, in that sense, it is a takeover.

"However, does the same happen with the mortgage business, given Halifax business is about three times the size of the C&G business? Does Lloyds TSB say Halifax is the bigger mortgage lender, we will merge the business together, drop the C&G name, and within the mortgage business the Halifax team take over the running of the show to the detriment of the people at C&G?

"Or do we say well, Lloyds already owns C&G, C&G is in the driving seat, do we presume it will be in the driving seat in the merged business? I don't know.

"I would have thought initially it would be good news for C&G because it is the acquiring outfit. But the suggestion is the company might drop the C&G brand in favour of Halifax because Halifax is bigger brand.

"If they have a full merger there is a chance they will drop the C&G brand and brand everything as Halifax."