RBS bank dives into red in first quarter

Royal Bank of Scotland said Thursday it sank into a first-quarter net loss on vast provisions for restructuring and legacy costs linked to its past conduct.

RBS, about 80-percent owned by the government after a 2008 bailout, said losses after taxation stood at £446 million ($688 million, 619 million euros) in the three months to the end of March.

That contrasted with a net profit of £1.195 billion in the same period a year earlier, it added in a results statement.

The bank set aside £453 million for restructuring costs, mainly relating to a writedown in the value of its US premises.

And it took £856 million of "litigation and conduct" charges, which related to "foreign exchange and mortgage-backed securities litigation in the United States together with other customer redress."

That provision included a £334 million charge for foreign exchange investigations and litigation, and another £100 million to compensate customers who were mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI).

Adjusted operating profit, stripping out the charges and other one-off items, rose 16 percent in the reporting period to £1.63 billion as RBS benefited from "generally benign credit conditions," cost-cutting and improving bad debts.

Edinburgh-based RBS was rescued with £45.5 billion of public money during the notorious global financial crisis, in the world's biggest bank bailout.

Back in November, six US and European banks were fined a total of $4.2 billion by regulators for attempting to rig forex markets.

RBS itself was fined £399 million by US and British regulators over the scandal.

British bank HSBC, US peers Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, and Swiss lender UBS were also fined by Britain's Financial Conduct Authority and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.