TSB profit more than doubles

Britain’s 7th biggest lender after being hived off from Lloyds Banking Group last June, TSB, said first-quarter new and switching bank accounts share increased to 7.9 per cent, above its target of 6 per cent.

Profit before tax on a management basis jumped 153.3 per cent to £34.2m for the three months ended March 31 from the fourth quarter of last year.

TSB, which last month agreed to a takeover by Spain’s Sabadell for £2bn, said it had received over £700m of gross mortgage applications through its newly launched TSB mortgage broker service by the end of the quarter.

Chief executive, Paul Pester, said: “TSB is starting to fire on all cylinders as we take on the big banks in our mission to bring more competition to UK banking.”

Shares in TSB Banking Group have risen 2.6 per cent since Sabadell made a takeover offer for the British lender.

TSB’s larger rival, Santander’s British arm, said this week it had hit its target of 4 million customers for its core banking product after adding 370,000 customers in the first quarter.