In the first quarter of 2010 Lloyds Banking Group returned to profitability on a combined businesses basis, which it puts mainly down to a significant slowing of impairments in the wholesale business.

Based on the Group’s current economic and regulatory assumptions, it expecs this trend to continue and for the Group to deliver a combined businesses profit at both the half and full year.

This is good news for the UK taxpayer, which currently ‘owns’ around 43% of the banking group, which took over HBOS in 2008.