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| Lloyds Banking Group first quarter profits rise to £2bn | Lloyds Banking Group first quarter profits rise to £2bn |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Lloyds Banking Group has reported a big rise in profits for the first three months of the year. | Lloyds Banking Group has reported a big rise in profits for the first three months of the year. |
| The bank, which is 39% taxpayer-owned, reported a statutory pre-tax profit of £2.04bn in the first quarter, up from £280m for the same period last year. | The bank, which is 39% taxpayer-owned, reported a statutory pre-tax profit of £2.04bn in the first quarter, up from £280m for the same period last year. |
| Group chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio said the bank had made "substantial progress". | Group chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio said the bank had made "substantial progress". |
| That is despite the collapse of a deal to sell more than 630 of its branches to the Co-op last week. | |
| Lloyds still plans to go ahead with the branch sale - called Project Verde - by selling them as a stand-alone bank through a stock market listing. | |
| Underlying profits, which strip out certain one-off costs and gains, were £1.5bn for the quarter. | |
| They exclude costs related to the planned branch sale, as well as money set aside for possible Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) payouts. | |
| Mr Horta-Osorio said profits had been driven by increased margins and a continued rapid fall in costs and impairments. | |
| Lloyds said costs fell 6% in the first quarter and added that it expected annual costs to fall to just over £9bn for 2014. | |
| The bank said it was continuing to invest in "simple, lower-risk, customer-focused UK retail and commercial banking". |