Lloyds TSB £4bn bad debt writedown

THE British-based Lloyds TSB Bank suffered a £4 billion (€4.264bn) bad debt write-down on its Irish operations last year, up from €2.949bn in 2009.

The bank, which owns HSBC, said the write-downs in its Irish operations — Bank of Scotland Ireland — reflected “the material deterioration in the economic environment in the last quarter of 2010.”

“The Irish economy remains at very low levels. We view them as sort of bouncing along the bottom, not getting worse but certainly not improving,” said outgoing chief executive Eric Daniels.