YP75: Bank's fraud charges rekindle memories of financial crisis

Iceland also returned to the news, with a volcano under the Eyjafjallajoekull glacier on the southern edge of the country sending a plume of ash over the UK and much of Western Europe. Diplomatic relations between the UK and Iceland soured in 2008 after the Government employed anti-terrorism legislation to seize Icelandic assets in the wake of the collapse of Icesave.

Earlier this month, voters in Iceland rejected proposals to reimburse the UK with the compensation paid out to protect UK saving accounts following the failure of Icesave and other Icelandic banks.

The volcanic eruption led to the grounding of the majority of flights from Thursday of last week, effecting operations at Leeds-based Dart Group, better known as low-cost airline Jet2.com, and causing misery for many thousands of travellers.

International Personal Finance, the Leeds-based lender, added 46,000 new customers in the first quarter which helped the Group swing to a three month pre-tax profit of 2m. This compares well to a loss of more than 8m this time last year.

The company, which provides short-term loans to customers across much of Eastern Europe and Mexico, credited the dramatic return to profit on an improving global economic outlook.

Performance across its various operations was mixed but markets including Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Mexico all reported strong profit growth. The shares, which reached a nadir of 72p in mid-2009, have since recovered strongly and ended the week up 8 per cent, at 261p.

In Yorkshire, electronic component firm Filtronic plc issued a profits warning and saw its shares drop 6.5 per cent, primarily down to a fall in short-term demand and a sluggish recovery in the telecoms infrastructure market.

Filtronic expects the loss for this year to be small although held back from stating a formal figure.

In the previous financial year, Filtronic made a pre-tax profit of 2.3m but its shares remain some way off the 2008 high of 91p.

Discover Leisure plc, the outdoor leisure and caravan retailer, expects full-year results to be ahead of 2009 and it reported a narrower first half-loss than this time last year.

Revenue for the six months to February 28 was 18.2m on which a loss before tax of 1.92m was recorded.

Finally, Zoo Digital Group, a software company for the film entertainment industry, expects full year earnings and sales to be significantly ahead of market consensus.

The shares rose on the back of the announcement and ended the week at 34.5p.

David Cadwallader, Assistant Investment Manager at Brewin Dolphin, Leeds