Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LON:LLOY) has been rated the best of the UK banks by broker Redburn, while Royal Bank of Scotland PLC remains a sell.
Margin resilience as it brings down unnecessarily high deposit rates will help Lloyds stand out from it peers said analysts at the independent broker.
State-owned rival RBS (LON:RBS) though, faces net interest margin pressure as mortgage competition intensifies with little in the way of liability reducing left to offset.
Redburn is also wary of challenger bank Virgin Money Holdings (UK) PLC (LON:VM.), which Redburn believes is vulnerable to the UK unsecured cycle, which threatens both consensus’ provision and revenue forecasts.
Meanwhile, consensus view of the revenue/cost jaws (income growth v expenses growth) for Standard Chartered PLC (LON:STAN) is unattainable believes Redburn, sell.
Lloyds shares eased a touch to 69p. RBS was 1% lower at 264p while Virgin dipped to 311.7p and Standard Chartered rose 1.6% to 720.2p.