Sept 24 (Reuters) - Starbucks Corp, the world's biggest coffee chain, promised to raise the average wage for its UK staff to just under 8 pounds ($12.18) an hour from November regardless of age, the Financial Times reported.

Starbucks will also offer interest free loans to help staff pay deposits on their housing, the Financial Times reported. (http://on.ft.com/1iP8Z5g)

British Finance minister George Osborne had made a surprise announcement in July that a new compulsory National Living Wage for workers aged over 25 would be introduced in April. The new wage rate would be set at 7.20 pounds an hour.

Starbucks's announcement comes a week after German-owned discount supermarket Lidl said it would increase pay for thousands of its staff in Britain by at least 12 percent.

Starbucks could not immediately be reached for comment.

($1 = 0.6570 pounds) (Reporting by Parikshit Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi)