Share plans & leaving your employer

For members in Lloyds Banking Group.

If you're leaving your employer, you may want to know what happens to any share plans that you currently hold. We've got some information here that will help you:

When you're leaving the business through redundancy, the following treatment will be applied to the share plans you may hold:

• Sharesave - for plans that mature after your leaving date you have three options: you can use your saving at the point of exiting to buy shares at the relevant option price; you can continue to save for a maximum of 6 months and then purchase the shares at the relevant option price; or you can withdraw your savings.
• Sharematch - the share plan administrator will write to you after you've left to have the shares transferred to you or sold. There is no tax or national insurance payable on these shares.
• Free shares - the share plan administrator will write to you after you've left to have the shares transferred to you or sold. There is no tax or national insurance payable on these shares.

When you're leaving the business through resignation, the following treatment will be applied to the share plans you may hold:

• Sharesave - for plans that mature after your leaving date you lose the option to purchase the shares at the end of the savings period. You can either withdraw the cash, or you can continue saving for the period, but you can't purchase shares at the end of the period. You must decide what to do with any matured plans, or the cash will be returned to you on leaving.
• Sharematch - any shares bought that have not been held for 5 years or more are subject to tax and national insurance. Any matched shares that have been held for less than 3 years are forfeit - if they've been held between 3 and 5 years, then tax and national insurance is payable. If they have been held for over 5 years, then both matched and bought shares will be transferred to you with no tax or national insurance deductions.
• Free shares - any free shares held for less than 3 years will be forfeit. Shares held between 3 and 5 years will be subject to tax and national insurance. If they have been held for over 5 years they will be transferred with no tax or national insurance to pay.