A BANKER who has become hugely influential in the business world in York has been promoted to a top job in London.

Maureen Loffill, York-based area manager of 26 branches of the HSBC will be leaving in October after six years to take on a lofty general management role, handling planning and project management nationally for the bank.

Announcement of her successor at York is expected imminently.

Mrs Loffill intends resigning from the York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce of which she was president two years ago, as well as from York Inward Investment Board, the board of York Business Development and the board of the York Learning City Project which seeks to plan strategically for improvement of the city's workforce skills.

But because she will continue with her home in Heslington - husband Tony, a linguist, is in charge of the PA system at Headingley and is dubbed "the voice of Yorkshire cricket" - she intends to maintain her other, more personal interests in York. These include her membership of the Merchant Adventurers, her Board membership of St Leonards Hospice and her position in the High Stewards' Council at York Minster.

She said: "I've fallen in love with York and there is no way we could leave it. I plan to buy a small place in the City - perhaps a small Thames-side apartment, preparing for the bank's major move to a new headquarters at Canary Wharf in 2002. That's my first strategic plan!"