Banks are poking their heads back above the parapet and are finding that the economic destruction caused by Covid-19 might not be as bad as they had feared.
Take Lloyds, for example. It has joined Barclays in releasing provisions set aside for bad debts as the nation was thrown into lockdown. An impairment credit of £656 million has pushed it into a pre-tax profit that was ahead of market forecasts, on the back of more optimistic assumptions for both house prices and GDP growth for this year and an expectation that unemployment will not be as severe as forecast.
A year ago Lloyds took a £3.8 billion impairment charge, which terrified shareholders and pushed the bank to a pre-tax loss. Moreover, the huge
