Royal Bank of Scotland, the owner of Ulster Bank which was bailed out by the British government, has reported a five-fold jump in write-offs, warning that bad debts will remain high 'for a while'.
The surge in first-half impairment charges to £7.5 billion saw RBS record a net loss of £1 billion during the six months to June 30, 26% higher compared with the same period a year earlier.
Ulster Bank seeks more lay-offs
'Our first-half results, as we had clearly warned, are poor,' RBS chief executive Stephen Hester said in a bleak results statement.
RBS managed a pre-tax profit of £15m in the six-month period after a loss of £726m a year earlier.
RBS, ravaged by the credit crunch and the 2007 takeover of Dutch group ABN Amro at the top of the market, is 70% owned by the British government, which has pumped billions of pounds into the ailing bank since last year.
The troubles at RBS have led to a boardroom shake-up with Hester replacing disgraced former chief executive Fred Goodwin, who led the bank to Britain's biggest annual corporate loss of more than £24 billion in 2008.
In a bid to cut costs, Royal Bank of Scotland on Tuesday announced it was selling part of its Asian operations to Australia and New Zealand Banking Group for $418m. It is also slashing up to 9,000 jobs over the next two years, half of them in Britain.
