HBOS vows to capture the top spot

BANK group HBOS threw down the gauntlet to life and pensions industry leaders Standard Life and Aviva today, saying it aimed to be number one in market share.

Chief executive James Crosby announced the goal as he unveiled a 24% rise in first-half pre-tax profits to £1.78bn.

'We should be number one because we are already number one in liquid savings and we've got tremendous distribution,' he said.

Standard sells £1.4bn of investment products a year and Aviva £1.3bn. HBOS, which owns Clerical Medical and St James's Place, is in third spot.

HBOS lifted UK sales of investment products by 11% in the first half, poaching market share from rivals which have mostly seen sales falls.

HBOS, the product of the 2001 merger of Halifax and Bank of Scotland, said £250m of merger synergies and strong growth in mortgage lending helped produce the record profits.

It raised bad-debt provisions from £379m to £499m, mostly because of the larger loan book. Crosby said the outlook was 'benign' and played down worries about growing consumer debt.

The interim dividend is raised 5% to 10.3p.