Antonio Horta-Osorio, the new chief executive of part-nationalised bank Lloyds Banking Group, warned that the lender consume up to five years to recover as the problems were more sever than he anticipated. 
 
In an interview with the Financial Times, Horta-Osorio said that Lloyds’ problems were not unknown to him, but problems like mis-selling of payment protection insurance and bad Irish loans ran deeper then his ideas.
 
Speaking on the topic, the new chief said, “This bank will be built over time -- it is a three- to five-year journey.”
 
Earlier this month, the bank suffered a brunt of 3.2 billion pound charge to compensate people who were mis-sold payment protection insurance products.
 
Horta-Osorio added that the bank would not set out a full 5-year plan when it would announce a strategic review at the end of this month.
 
European regulators have asked Lloyds to sell 600 branches to boost competition in the market.
 
British Government has 41 per cent stake in Lloyds since it had to pump billions of pounds of taxpayers' money to bail it out during the last global credit crisis.