By Najat Kantouar

Metro Bank maintained its full-year expectations after swinging to a pretax profit in the first half.

The U.K. high-street lender said Wednesday that pretax profit for the period was 43.1 million pounds ($57.3 million) compared with a loss of 33.5 million pounds for the same period a year earlier.

Total underlying revenue rose to 286.1 million pounds from 234.0 million pounds. Meanwhile, underlying net interest income increased to 223 million pounds from 172 million pounds, reflecting a continued transition toward higher-yielding assets and a reduction in cost of deposits, the bank said. Net interest margin was 2.87%, up from 1.64% the previous year.

Metro Bank's common equity Tier 1 ratio--a key measure of balance-sheet strength--stood at 12.8% on June 30 compared with 12.5% six months prior.

The company reiterated its full-year guidance, which includes return on tangible equity--a key profitability metric--in the mid-to-upper single-digits. It still anticipates net interest margin to be between 3.00% and 3.25% and to reduce costs by 4% to 5%.

Write to Najat Kantouar at najat.kantouar@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 06, 2025 02:35 ET (06:35 GMT)

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