A BURNLEY-BORN banker is being tipped to take over the hotseat at the new-look Lloyds Banking Group.

Martin Taylor, who went to the former Sunny Bank Preparatory School in Manchester Road, is on the shortlist to become the bank’s new chairman, according to national newspaper reports.

Mr Taylor, 61, grew up in the Rossendale Road area, before moving to Padiham and Simonstone.

A former chief executive of Barclays from 1994 to 1998, he then went on to become chairman of retailer WH Smith from 1999 to 2003 and an international adviser to investment bank Goldman Sachs from 1999 to 2005.

In 2010-11 he was a member of the government’s Independent Commission on Banking and is currently an external member of the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee.

Lloyds’ current chairman, Sir Win Bischoff, 72, is due to step down next year and is hunting for a successor along with the bank’s chief executive, Antonnio Horta-Osorio.

Colne businessman David Fishwick, who has campaigned for better banking, said: “If he is appointed, it would be nice to think he remembered his Burnley roots and does his best to help the north of England.”

He is currently the chairman of chemical firm Syngenta,