Lloyds Sets Aside A Further £1bn For PPI

Lloyds Banking Group has set aside a further £1bn to cover costs relating to the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI) - taking its total bill to £5.3bn.

The announcement came as the 40% taxpayer-owned bank said it made a pre-tax statutory loss of £583m in the nine months to the end of September.

This compares with a £3.8bn loss over the same period last year.

If the cost of PPI is stripped from the results, the group's underlying profit hit £1.9bn for the three quarters - compared with 2011's £768m.

Lloyds had already set aside £4.3bn to repay customers wrongly sold the insurance - much more than its rivals because it had the biggest share of the PPI market.

It said it had paid out 70% of its provision by the end of September, and that the volume of claims had fallen to £250m in the last three months. 

The bank's chief executive, Antonio Horta-Osorio, said the "ultimate cost" of the PPI scandal was "going to be huge" - and the bank would not know the full extent of the damage until at least March next year.

Mr Horta-Osorio, who has been charged with turning around the bank following its 2008 bailout, said it is making good progress with its cost-cutting.

Lloyds' bad debts are expected to fall to this year to around £6bn - some £1.2bn less than it expected at the start of 2012.

"We have made further significant progress this quarter, improving underlying performance in a challenging environment, while continuing to deliver returns above the cost of equity in the core business and strengthen our already robust balance sheet." Mr Horta-Osorio said.

On a conference call following the results, he insisted retail banking in the UK was competitive, and stressed that Lloyds was continuing to boost its lending to small and medium-sized businesses and provide mortgages to first buyers.

The group's share price rose 3.6% in early trading.