Trading updates from the UK’s Big
Four retail banks – Lloyds, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)
and HSBC – have followed the global trend of improved investment
banking earnings but souring retail ones. Barclays reported strong
income growth at its global retail and commercial banking emerging
markets unit, with the exception of India, where it swung into the
red. Overall, Barclays’ retail unit posted a retail profit of £586
million ($888.3 million) for the quarter, compared with £1.07
billion a year ago.
At state-controlled RBS, UK retail reported a
pre-tax profit of £172 million compared with £469 million a year
ago, but its overall retail performance was dragged down by its US,
Europe and Middle East and Asia units, posting quarterly losses of
£98 million, £91 million and £75 million respectively.
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Across the group, RBS lost £857 million after
impairments of £2.86 billion, despite an extremely strong
performance by its global banking and markets division.
And a statement from Lloyds, the UK’s largest
retail bank by branches and customers, forecast a sharp increase in
bad debt charges this year due to “rising UK unemployment, reduced
corporate cash flows, lower house prices, and falls in the value of
commercial real estate”.
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