Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley 'bad bank' is confident of paying £43.4bn

Britain’s so-called bad bank paid £4 billion to the taxpayer in 2012 leaving it with just £43.4 billion to go.

Richard Pym, chairman of UK Asset Resolution (UKAR), which took over the worst parts of the mortgage books from the failed banks Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley, said: "We still have a long way to go, but it remains our expectation and determination to repay that debt in full."

UKAR does not do any new business, and is effectively running down the residential and mortgage books of the two bust banks.

The company's management hopes that it will have repaid the bulk of the taxpayer loans within the next decade. UKAR repaid £3.1bn of taxpayer debt and also paid the Treasury £900m in interest.

Meanwhile, directors at Royal Bank of Scotland will today meet to discuss the various bids it has received for the network of 316 branches it is selling.

The part-nationalised lender is being forced to offload the "Project Rainbow" branches by Europe because it took state aid during the financial crisis.

Bidders including Virgin Money, a consortium led by Andrew Higginson, a former finance director at Tesco, and a rival group including the private equity firm Corsair Capital submitted bids last week.

A decision is unlikely to be made for several weeks.