(Adds COO comment, details)
By Aashika Jain
March 19 (Reuters) - Arbuthnot Banking Group's full-year profit jumped 43 percent after the British company'slending to customers rose to a record high of 1.1 billion pounds($1.6 billion).
The group comprises private banking business ArbuthnotLatham & Co Limited and retail banking arm Secure Trust Bank. It is one of the smaller players among lenders tryingto break the dominance of the "Big Five" in British banking.
Arbuthnot said a reduction in overall lending to small andmedium businesses was creating space for more challenger banksto expand.
Britain's newest and most powerful financial regulator haspledged to introduce meaningful change this year to help newbanks claim market share from the five leadingplayers.
"Our focus is on identifying areas where we believe where wehave strong core competencies and have key points ofdifferentiation that enable us not to have to compete onhead-to-head with the big banks," Arbuthnot Banking Group's COOAndrew Salmon said.
Arbuthnot, which has its roots in the 181-year-old privatebank and wealth manager Arbuthnot Latham, reported a rise in netinterest income to 98 million pounds in 2014 from 73 millionpounds earlier.
Pretax profit increased to 22.5 million pounds from 15.7million pounds.
The bank said it would pay a total dividend of 27 pencecompared with 44 pence, which included an 18 pence specialdividend a year earlier.
The stock was trading 3 percent down on slim volumes at 1398pence at 1235 GMT. ($1 = 0.6725 pounds)($1 = 0.6732 pounds) (Reporting by Aashika Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by AnupamaDwivedi and Keith Weir)
Arbuthnot (ARBB)
