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Northern Rock looking to play its cards right

NORTHERN Rock plans to start offering credit cards and personal loans again as it readies itself for sale to the private sector, the group said yesterday.

The lender said it has the platform to offer a greater variety of retail banking services in a “safe way”.

News of the move came as the first set of results were released since the January 1 demerger - which created a mortgage and savings bank called Northern Rock plc and hived off the bank’s more toxic loans into Northern Rock Asset Management (AM).

Half-year figures showed Northern Rock AM returned to profit in the first six months amid a fall in bad debts to £277.6m. It reported underlying pre-tax profits of £167.3m in the six months to June 30 compared with a loss of £243.9m a year earlier.

But its sister firm reported an underlying interim loss of £140m as it was hit by rising costs. The “good” Northern Rock also lost nearly £2bn of retail savings after the removal of the Government’s guarantee in May.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .