Troubled lender the Co-operative Bank has reported a £75.8 million pre-tax loss for the first half of the year but said it was encouraged by its progress since it was rescued from near-collapse last year.
The bank's interim results are the first since it reported a full-year loss of £1.3 billion for 2013.
While it remains in the red, the six-month loss is an improvement on the loss of £844.6 million reported in the same period last year.
It said the number of permanent employees of the bank had been slashed by 13% in the first half of 2014.
The bank also said its capital position had been strengthened, following a £400 million capital-raising.
The business had to be rescued last year after a £1.5 billion hole was discovered in its balance sheet, in a deal which saw the wider Co-op group cede majority ownership of it to bondholders including US hedge funds.
Chief executive Niall Booker said: "Considering the scale of the challenge we faced a year ago, we are encouraged by the progress made to ensure the stability of the bank."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article