Lloyds Banking Group has reported, for the first nine months of 2018. statutory profit after tax of £3.7 billion up 18% on the same period last year, with a 5% increase in underlying profit.

Group loans and advances to customers increased by £2.3 billion in the quarter to £445 billion with growth in targeted segments partly offset by a reduction of £0.7 billion in the closed mortgage book.

Over the last nine months, SME and mid-markets grew by £1.9 billion and Motor Finance by £0.9 billion whilst balances on the open mortgage book of £267 billion “are in line with the start of the year”, Lloyds reported.

The Group continues to expect the year end position for open mortgages to be slightly higher than the end of 2017.

Lloyds also reported a £105 million loss on sale of the Irish mortgage portfolio. No additional charge was taken for Payment Protection Insurance in the quarter.

António Horta-Osório, group chief executive, said: “In the first nine months of 2018 we have delivered a strong and sustainable financial performance, with increased profits and returns and continued strong capital build. These results further demonstrate the strength of our business model and the benefits of our low risk, customer focused approach.

“We have also made a strong start to our 2018 to 2020 strategic plan. We have been implementing the initiatives which we announced in February as part of our ambitious strategy to transform the Group for success in a digital world. As planned, our strategic investment has accelerated and is already delivering real benefits to customers whilst operating costs continue to reduce. We have also just announced a wealth management joint venture initiative with Schroders, demonstrating the Group’s focus on enhancing our customer proposition and growing our financial planning and retirement businesses.

“We remain on track to deliver the improved financial targets for 2018 that we announced in August, as well as all of our longer term guidance.”