Banks

RBS losses widen after income takes a tumble

Part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland reported a widening first-quarter loss on Friday as lower income, restructuring costs and sluggish asset sales showed the scale of problems still facing the lender.

The bank reported an attributable loss of £968 million($1.42 billion), up from £459 million the year before and just higher than the £957 million average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by RBS.

Income dropped around 13 percent year on year to £3.06 billion.

Royal Bank of Scotland ATM's
Matt Cardy | Getty Images

The spike in losses was also driven by a one-off £1.2 billion pound payment to end the British government's priority over dividends and a £238 million restructuring bill.

That bill includes the mounting costs of separating its Williams & Glyn business, which the bank said it could fail to sell off before an end-2017 regulatory deadline.

A logo sits above an automated teller machine (ATM) outside a Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) bank branch in London, U.K.
RBS reports full-year loss of £1.97 billion
ATM cash machines outside a branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh.
RBS profit to be hit by $3.6B in extra provisions

RBS is struggling to return to health amidst an unprecedented corporate restructuring and has not made an annual profit since 2007.

RBS, which was rescued in a £46 billion pound taxpayer-funded bailout during the 2007-09 financial crisis, is still 73 percent owned by the British government. This quarter's performance brings the total sum lost since the bailout to around £52 billion pounds.

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