Bad bank sneaks another three months into its year

High-pressured City types tend to wish for more hours in the day to squeeze in all their work, plus tacking on a play-hard attitude outside of the office.

 

Britain’s bad bank, made up of the remains of Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley, today stepped some way towards making this a reality by reporting their annual financial results over a 15-month year.

 

From 1 January 2013 to 31 March 2014, UK Asset Resolution managed to pay the taxpayer £5.1bn on debt repayments and £1.1bn of other charges.

 

Its extra three months on the year are not UKAR fiddling the numbers – rather, it began life using the failed banks’ calendar reporting years as December to December, and has now shifted to the Treasury’s timetable of April to April financial years.

 

Although it is almost seven years since Northern Rock’s collapse, UKAR is still a long way from paying off the bills – it has given the Treasury more than £10bn, but still has £38bn to go, meaning it is just over one-fifth of the way there.

 

The bad bank added that the number of struggling borrowers in arrears could start rising when interest rates go up.

 

Ultra-low rates have helped keep that number down in recent years – the past 15 months saw the number drop to 15,483, down 39 per cent on the previous 12-month period.