RBS posts £1.1bn loss
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Royal Bank of Scotland has posted a £1.1bn loss for the year to December 31, 2010, largely driven by the £1.1bn cost of taking up the Government’s Asset Protection Scheme.
The loss for last year is a 69 per cent improvement on the £3.6bn loss the bank reported for 2009, and also continues the turnaround from the £24bn posted for 2008.
Impairment losses fell by 33 per cent from £13.9bn to £9.3bn.
Between March 2010 and February 2011 the bank lent £52bn to UK businesses, ahead of its £50bn full year target.
Over the same period RBS lent over £15bn in mortgages, again ahead of its £8bn target.
Gross mortgage lending was down 3 per cent from 2009, totalling £18.7bn. RBS held its market share of new mortgage lending at 11 per cent.
Group chief executive Stephen Hester says: “Our goals for 2011 are clear. External events can still blow us off course and caution is needed until these clarify.
“But for our part, the strategy is delivering. We are focusing on serving our customers well and better. We are stripping away excess risk inherited from the past. We are building enduring strength and value in the new RBS and supporting the economies we serve.”
The FSA closed an investigation into RBS in December, launched in May 2009, looking at the conduct of senior management in the run-up to the Government bailout. The investigation also looked at the bank’s acquisition of ABN Amro in 2008 and its capital-raisings in 2008.
The FSA ruled that although the bank had made bad decisions these were not as a result of a lack of integrity. But the regulator caused uproar when it said it would not publish its report from the investigation.
After pressure from Treasury select committee chairman Andrew Tyrie, the FSA said the report could be published by March.
A statement contained with today’s results says: “RBS Group is engaging constructively with the FSA with regard to the publication of a report by the FSA relating to the supervisory review, subject to any necessary commercial constraints.”
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