Taxpayer gets £400m in sale of 'bad bank'

Britain's "bad bank", UK Asset Resolution, is selling its personal loans business for £400m in a deal it said was "fair value for the taxpayer".

The loans, to some 140,000 customers, represent the last of the unsecured loan portfolios of the parts of Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley that the Government failed to sell after they were nationalised. The buyers are the JC Flowers-backed OneSavings Bank and the specialist debt buyer Marlin Financial.