Northern Rock announces £585.4m losses

Northern Rock today announced losses of £585.4m (€738m) for the first half of this year as the number of customers falling behind with mortgage payments jumped sharply.

The recently-nationalised lender said its bad debts provision stood at £351.8m (€443m) as 1.18% of its mortgage book slipped to more than three months in arrears at June 30 – more than double the amount at the end of 2007.