It seems to have been quite a rare occurrence over the past year or so, but there has been some good news at last on the job front in the financial services sector. Intelligent Finance, the internet and telephone banking arm of the Halifax, has announced plans to create more than 600 new jobs at a new facility in Fife, Scotland.

The huge new customer service and administration centre is a sure sign that the bank, launched just 18 months ago, is enjoying considerable success as more and more people turn on to online banking. Estimates suggest that there are well over 300,000 active account holders at IF, with combined accounts worth almost £9 billion.

The bank currently has two main offices, in Edinburgh and Livingstone, which will between them lose around 200 staff to the new centre. An addition of 600 more jobs will take the bank's workforce to almost 3,000. Despite fierce competition from other areas of the UK, the bank decided to continue its trend of basing its main operations in Scotland.

Completely coincidentally, the new offices just happen to be within the Dunfermline East constituency of Chancellor Gordon Brown, who in fact opened the bank in September 2000. He is said to have worked closely with enterprise agency Invest In Fife to persuade the company to move there, rather than to the north of England.

Showing his clear delight at the decision, Mr Brown said: "Today's announcement means that 10,000 jobs have been created in the last five years and unemployment is now half its previous level in the Dunfermline district. The Intelligent Finance development demonstrates Fife's new role in financial services which we plan to build on in the next few months to come. Over the last three decades Fife has lost thousands of jobs in the mining and defence industry, but working together, business, workforces, the council, local MPs and local people, thousands of new jobs are being created."