The Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) has reported a loss for 2015 of £1.98bn.

It is the eighth year of losses at the bank.

However, this is an improvement on 2014, when the bank posted a loss of £3,47n.

2015 results included a charge for goodwill impairment of £498 million attributed to Private Banking; a loss on redemption of own debt of £263 million; and a gain of £1,147 million on loss of control of Citizens largely arising from the reclassification of foreign exchange reserves (£962 million).

The bank is still 73% owned by the UK taxpayer.

Mortgage applications increased 48% from £21.7 billion to £32.0 billion as gross new lending rose 29% to £23 billion. Market share of new mortgages was 10.5% versus a stock share of 8.2%. This led to net mortgage balances growing by £9.3 billion or 10% to £104.8 billion.

Ross McEwan, RBS’s chief executive, said: “The UK government’s decision to start disposing of its majority stake in RBS during 2015 was a significant step forward, and underlined the progress we have made over the last two years.

“We have previously said that we are in phase two of our plan, working through as many of the remaining conduct and restructuring issues as we can. This is a tough but important part of our plan and we are determined to get through it as quickly as possible.

“We will then move to the third phase as a strong, simple and fair bank that delivers solidly on the needs of its customers and shareholders.”