RBS First Quarter Loss Narrows on Lower Bad Debts (Update1)

By Andrew MacAskill and Jon Menon Bloomberg

May 7 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Britain’s biggest government-owned bank, reported a narrower first-quarter loss on lower bad debt charges as the economy emerged from recession.

The net loss was 248 million pounds ($363 million), compared with 902 million pounds in the year-earlier period, the Edinburgh-based lender said today in an e-mailed statement. Impairments dropped to 2.68 billion pounds in the period from 3.1 billion pounds in the last quarter of 2009. “Economic recovery is benefiting our customers and thereby ourselves,” Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hester said. “We remain conscious of the economic imbalances still to be tackled globally and of the risk of specific events -- such as those affecting Greece -- with the associated danger of contagion.”

RBS is the only publicly traded British bank still reporting a loss after Lloyds Banking Group Plc said last month it returned to profit. The U.K. government, which owns 83 percent of the bank, has a 1.5 billion-pound paper loss on its 45.5 billion pound investment in the bank after providing bailout funds