Lloyds Banking group has stated that 8,000 offshore bank accounts have been suspended in Jersey in order to combat suspected money laundering.

The bank, confirming a report originally published in the Financial Times, said it had been asking account holders for proof of identity over the past three years.

Its action was taken to meet more demanding “know your customer” requirements.

In a statement, Lloyds said, “In January 2016, we began to contact certain expatriate banking customers to ensure we were provided with up to date information for our records, where customer information was missing. This was ...