Royal Bank of Scotland has tumbled to a loss in the third quarter after taking a £900 million hit for payment protection insurance (PPI) claims.
The part-nationalised lender reported pre-tax operating losses of £8 million for the three months to September 30, down from £961 million a year ago.
It posted attributable losses of £315 million, against profits of £448 million a year earlier.
READ MORE: Royal Bank of Scotland lists its top 25 Scots entrepreneurs
RBS – still 62% owned by the Government – blamed losses on the £900 million bill for PPI following a last-minute surge in claims ahead of the August 29 deadline, as well as a “particularly challenging” quarter for its investment banking arm.
Ross McEwan (Andrew Milligan/PA)
Despite the third-quarter losses, RBS said it remained on track for full-year expectations in “uncertain times”.
The group said operating profits stood at £2.7 billion for the nine months of the year so far, down slightly on the £2.8 billion reported a year ago.
The figures mark the last for boss Ross McEwan before he hands over to the lending giant’s first female chief executive.
Mr McEwan leaves on October 31, paving the way for Alison Rose to make history as the first woman to run one of Britain’s biggest high street banks.
READ MORE: Hotel plan for huge former RBS site in Edinburgh
Chief financial officer Katie Murray said: “These results demonstrate our solid underlying performance in a tough operating environment.
“We have seen strong growth across the business and our sustained high levels of capital and liquidity mean we are well positioned to support our customers in these uncertain times.”
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