State-backed Royal Bank of Scotland slumped to a loss of £446million in the first quarter, it revealed today.
The lender, 80% owned by the taxpayer, was hit by restructuring costs of £453m and £856min “litigation and conduct” charges.
Adjusted operating profit, excluding one-off charges, was up 16% to £1.63billion as the bank benefited from “generally being credit conditions”.
The loss attributable to shareholders of £446m compares to a profit of £1.2bn for the same period a year ago.
RBS said the hit for litigation and conduct charges related to “foreign exchange and mortgage-backed securities litigation in the United States together with other customer redress”.
Within this was a £334m charge for forex investigations and litigation and £100m set aside to cover compensation for mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI).
RBS has already paid out £399m in penalties to US and UK regulators over the forex scandal.
Today’s restructuring costs mainly related to a write-down in the value of US premises.
The results come after RBS in February reported an annual loss of £3.5bn.
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