RBS Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC

By Adam Clark

Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS.LN) said Friday that its 2018 profit rose sharply and it will pay a special dividend but warned that Brexit uncertainty is putting its medium-term cost targets at risk.

For the fourth quarter, RBS made a pretax profit of 572 million pounds ($733.5 million) and a net profit of GBP286 million.

The quarterly performance contributed to an annual pretax profit of GBP3.36 billion and a net profit of GBP1.62 billion. Analysts had forecast an annual net profit of GBP1.42 billion, according to company-compiled consensus.

Total income for the year came to GBP13.40 billion, largely in line with analyst forecasts. The lender's net interest margin, the difference between the money it earns on lending and pays out on deposits, stood at 1.98%, down 15 basis points from the prior year.

RBS said it expects an increase in impairments in 2019 and will cut its operating costs by GBP300 million. However, the lender said its 2020 target of a cost-to-income ratio of less than 50% is "increasingly challenging" amid ongoing economic certainty and costs associated with Brexit. RBS ended 2018 with a cost-to-income ratio of 71.7%.

The bank declared a final dividend of 3.5 pence a share, and a special dividend of 7.5 pence a share. RBS's common equity Tier 1 capital ratio --a measure of a bank's financial strength-- stood at 16.2% at the end of 2018.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 15, 2019 02:41 ET (07:41 GMT)

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