No news is good news at Lloyds Banking Group Plc as it continues on its path to being a leaner UK retail bank. Britain’s largest mortgage lender said first-quarter pretax profit increased 23% to £1.6 billion ($2.2 billion), and it expects the nation’s “resilient” economy to perform similarly for the rest of the year. The earnings narrowly missed analysts’ expectations, Bloomberg reported. “There are no signs of deterioration across the economy,” Chief Financial Officer George Culmer said on a call with reporters after its statement on Wednesday. “We are on track to deliver our financial targets for 2018 and maintain our longer-term guidance.” Chief Executive Officer Antonio Horta-Osorio has been cutting costs since taking the top job around seven years ago. The London-based bank, which has almost all its assets in the UK, is targeting an aggressive cost-to-income ratio at the end of 2020, which would make it one of the most efficient European lenders. The bank, which had 70,255 staff as of the end of June, has shrunk from about 99,000 employees in 2011, the year Horta-Osorio became chief.
