Bank 'confident of meeting market hopes'
Royal Bank of Scotland today became the latest lender to flag up the slowdown in the housing market and consumer borrowing in Britain as it declared itself confident of meeting full year market hopes.
RBS said there had been some signs of a modest easing in the rate of growth in unsecured lending, and more recently in mortgages, in the second half of the year to December 31.
The Edinburgh-based bank said any slowdown in UK consumer lending would have a minimal impact on its overall income as it accounted for only about 10% of its group revenues.
Nevertheless, it said lending, particularly in mortgages, had continued to expand and contribute to good overall asset growth.
The bank said costs had increased to support higher business volumes and it remained focused on increasing efficiency through customer service initiatives.
In a trading statement, chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin said the results had continued to show good momentum across the bank’s broad range of businesses, driven both organically and through acquisitions.
“Our results are expected to show a picture of financial strength across all our businesses,” he said.
