Royal Bank of Scotland enjoys rise in profits on the back of strong performance from its personal banking arm

Otmane El Rhazi from Mindful Money » Shares.

Royal Bank of Scotland has reported a 27% rise in its second quarter profits helped partly by a strong performance across its personal and business banking divisions.

Following the news, shares in the group jumped 6p or 2% to 359.2p in early trading.

The still majority tax-payer owned bank posted an attributable profit of £293m for the period however overall it endured a loss of £153m for the first half. It said its mortgage business enjoyed a boost as borrowing applications jumped to £9.4bn over the quarter.

Litigation and conduct costs were lower too at £459m compared with £856m in the first quarter.

But restructuring costs rose to more than £1b, from £453m in in the first quarter, as the pace of change accelerated.

Commenting on the market update, RBS chief executive Ross McEwan said: “I think these results show we are making really good progress. We set out a very clear plan for the bank.

“We are going further than I think a lot of people thought we would have done in this short period of time but we have got lots to do.”