The Independent on Sunday: The week that was: Investors get the jitters as lenders are hit by bad debts
“Meanwhile, Royal Dutch Shell unveiled half-year profits of £5.8bn, or £1.3m an hour. But it doesn’t plan to stop there. Shell plans to increase the money spent on exploring for oilfields to £1bn both this year and next year. Investors had been concerned that Shell wasn’t doing enough to replace its falling oil reserves.”
Sunday 31 July 2005
Fears that consumers have been over-extending themselves resurfaced again last week with Lloyds TSB reporting a jump in bad debt charges. While first-half profits increased 9 per cent, the market got a little jumpy when Lloyds said impairment losses on bad loans were up 52 per cent to £670m.
Statistics released by the Bank of England also suggested that consumers were getting nervous. UK lending to households rose in June by the second-smallest amount this year, the bank found.