KEEPING a lid on consumer lending in the face of a threat of growing bad debts will see Alliance Leicester beat City profit forecasts for the year, the country's seventh-largest bank said today.
In a trading update ahead of the end of its financial year, AL reckoned core operating profits would top the Pounds 506 million that analysts have pencilled in for 2005.
It said that operating costs during the year will be significantly lower than they were in 2004.
The building society-turnedbank, which has around 4% of Britain's mortgage market, said it had tightened up lending criteria for personal loans on more than one occasion this year.
That has seen growth in unsecured lending fall from the 16% the bank reported in the first nine months of the year.
AL said that charges for bad debts will be Pounds 7 million higher in the second half than in the first six months, on the back of a " deterioration in credit quality".
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