LONDON, July 31 (Reuters) - New British bank TSB said its underlying profit in the first six months of the yearfell 17 percent from a year ago after it incurred far highercosts after spinning out and listing on its own last month.
TSB, Britain's 7th biggest lender after being spun out fromLloyds Banking Group and listed last month, saidunderlying pretax profit in the six months to the end of Junewas 78.6 million pounds ($133 million), down from 94.6 million ayear earlier. It said costs were 62 million pounds higher than ayear ago as it no longer benefited from the economies of scalethat Lloyds has.
Lloyds sold a 35 percent stake in TSB and its shares havegained 8 percent since listing, valuing the bank - which haspledged to stick to simple UK retail banking to win businessfrom its big rivals - at 1.3 billion pounds.
TSB has 631 branches and was carved out from Lloyds underorders from European regulators as a cost of the taxpayerbailout for the lender in the 2008/09 financial crisis.
TSB said it won 9.2 percent of new and switching currentaccount holders in the three months to the end of April, whichshould help it lift its market share above its 4.2 percent.($1 = 0.5911 British Pounds) (Reporting by Steve Slater; Editing by Matt Scuffham)
Lloyds (LLOY)
