Royal Bank of Scotland has seen its pre-tax profit leap to £1.14bn in the first half of the year.

苏格兰皇家银行今年上半年税前盈利11.4亿英镑。

The bank has announced about 23,000 job cuts since 2008

It reported an operating profit of £1.6bn compared with an operating loss of £3.4bn in 2009.

RBS, which is 84%-owned by the taxpayer¹, has announced 23,000 job losses worldwide since October 2008, including 17,100 in the UK.

Earlier this week, it agreed to sell 318 branches to Santander.

"The semi-nationalised bank does appear to be on the mend - although it's a long way from full strength," BBC business editor Robert Peston said.

RBS's results follow upbeat（乐观的，上升的） performances from Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds.

'Good progress'

Chief executive Stephen Hester said the bank's five-year restructuring plan was "on track".

"We are making good progress with disposals and overall business restructuring," he added. but said the rebuilding of RBS was "a marathon not a sprint²（冲刺，短跑） ".

RBS said that its overall lending was down by 3% on 2009 levels, but added that the bulk of（大多数，大部分） its loans were to small businesses, totalling £14.4bn.

Banks have been criticised for not doing enough to support firms during the economic downturn.

Like its rivals, RBS insists that in the current climate it cannot lend faster than its customers want to repay their existing debts.

Government rescue

RBS was told to sell branches by the European Commission last year to safeguard competition concerns after it was bailed³ out by the UK government.

The sale of the branches to Santander includes 311 RBS-branded branches in England and Wales, and seven NatWest branches in Scotland.

Spain's Santander already owns the Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley brands in the UK.

RBS led a consortium（财团，联合） that bought Dutch bank ABN Amro before the credit crunch⁴ in 2007, but the deal was a disaster, weakening its balance sheet and forcing the government to pump in about £45bn to keep the bank afloat.

The bank has put £282bn in toxic⁵ debts into a taxpayer-backed insurance scheme, but RBS will bear the first £60bn of losses on these.