Rights issue off agenda as Lloyds limits the damage

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Chief executive Eric Daniels, who has kept Lloyds away from most of the riskiest areas of banking, said: "Our strong liquidity and funding capability have ensured the group has continued to raise wholesale funds at market-leading rate."

But the sign of the Black Horse was not entirely immune to the subprime crisis, and today's first-quarter writedown was £387 million, against £280 million for the whole of 2007. Excluding that, the bank said, pre-tax profits in the first three months had grown by at least 10%.

Daniels said the bank's funding strength and continued access to wholesale markets, while others were having more difficult times, had seen it "capturing market share in a number of key areas whilst improving profit margins".

He added that Lloyds had "significantly improved our market share of net new market lending whilst maintaining prudent loan-to-value ratios. Recent levels of mortgage allocations remain strong".

He also said profit margins on the mortgage business "have improved considerably as we benefit from the marketwide increase in interest spreads and our relative funding advantage." On the insurance and investment side, cautious consumers switched away from share-based savings to cash investments, causing a slowdown in growth.

Daniels said "We remain firmly on track to deliver a good performance in the first half of 2008."