LONDON: Britain's state-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland said Thursday that net losses narrowed sharply last year to £1.125 billion pounds (1.327 billion euros, $1.823 billion) as bad debts tumbled. The performance marked a large improvement from net losses of £3.607 billion that were suffered in 2009, said RBS, which is 83-percent owned by the taxpayer after an enormous bailout. Most of last year's loss was due to a large exceptional charge of £1.116 billion under the British government's asset protection scheme, which is an insurance plan to protect banks from losses generated by high-risk assets. Operating profit, excluding any exceptional elements, jumped into a profit of 1.913 billion pounds in 2010, compared with a shortfall of £6.090 billion in the previous year. RBS added that impairments nosedived by 33 percent to £9.256 billion last year. And in the fourth quarter, or three months to the end of December, RBS made a slender net profit of £12 million. That compared with a third-quarter net loss of £1.146 billion. "RBS is now two years into its five year plan to restore the group to good health, and has made strong progress against its targets in 2010," the bank said in the earnings release. The Edinburgh-based lender was ravaged by the global credit crunch and the takeover of Dutch giant ABN Amro at the top of the market in 2007. That led to RBS being rescued with 45 billion pounds of British government money, the biggest single bank bailout in the world.
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