The scheme, which will affect the mortgage division and the back office area, will see the firm trim between 200 and 300 jobs out of over 8,000 staff currently in place.
However, the lender has insisted that none of the staff on the intermediary side will be allowed to apply for voluntary redundancy as its broker operation is key to its strategy going forward.
Raj Uppal, director of mortgage sales and operations at Alliance & Leicester, said: “Alliance & Leicester is committed to the mortgage market and to working with intermediaries. However with the housing market expected to slow, we are expecting fewer new mortgages than in recent years.
“We are offering a limited scheme to people who work in some areas of our mortgage division and to some other back office areas of the bank.
"Staff at our Belfast operation who service our intermediary mortgage market will not be eligible to apply.
"In no way will the service we offer be compromised and our commitment is to provide an efficient service to intermediaries and this focus has not changed.”
A&L insisted that many of the roles which would be cut would be in areas where technology was already covering and improving its processing.
It also dismissed suggestions in the national press that it was scaling back its lending in 2008; instead saying it was still open for new mortgage business but it would place greater focus on the retention of clients and attracting more ‘high quality’ business.
