Figures for the first nine months of this year at Lloyds showed its profits gained, although there was a slight fall in the latest quarter from a year earlier.

Lloyds Banking Group, which this week announced it was building a wealth management joint venture with fellow British firm Schroders, today announced a statutory after-tax profit of £1.397 billion ($4.13 billion) for the three months to the end of September, a 5 per cent year-on-year fall. For the first nine months of 2018, however, the figure rose 18 per cent from a year earlier to £3.664 billion.

Before tax, statutory profit in Q3 fell 7 per cent to £1.817 billion, the banking group said. Total income for the quarter rose 1 per cent to £4.686 billion. The bank’s Common Equity Tier 1 ratio stood at 13.9 per cent, up slightly on the year.

“We remain on track to deliver the improved financial targets for 2018 that we announced in August, as well as all of our longer term guidance,” António Horta-Osório, the group’s chief executive said.

Separately, the bank said its chief financial officer George Culmer, plans to retire. He has been in the post since 2012, a period during which the bank had been partly owned by the UK taxpayer following the bailout of 2008. The bank has started to find a successor and it said it expects Culmer will retire after interim results next year.

As reported this week, Lloyds has formed a joint venture with Schroders, the investment firm and private bank, to build a wealth management operation. That project follows media speculation that such a move was being contemplated.