Lloyds takes fresh £600m PPI hit but profits beat expectations

Lloyds Banking Group has set aside a further £600m for the mis-selling of payment protection insurance but its interim results show an improvement in underlying profit.

The bank put aside another £1.1bn in charges relating to its conduct in its latest results, days after it was fined £218m for the manipulation of LIBOR, but also benefitted from a fall in impairment charges. Underlying profit rose by almost a third to £3.8bn as a result, surpassing analyst expectations, though statutory pre-tax profit fell 60% to £863m. The bank added it still intends to apply to regulators later this year to resume dividend payments at a “modest” level. It said the volume of PPI payments continues to fall and is roughly 30% lower than at this time last year. Th...