LONDON BRIEFING: Lloyds Banking to Embark on wealth management drive Thu, 29th Jul 2021 08:23 (Alliance News) - Lloyds Bankings on Thursday followed peer Barclays in announcing a big improvement to second-quarter results, while also restoring its payout and announcing an acquisition to accelerate its push into wealth management. Lloyds said it swung to a GBP3.91 billion pretax profit in the first half of 2021, from a GBP602 million loss a year earlier. The lender's net income rose 2.0% to GBP7.56 billion from GBP7.41 billion. Net interest margin was 2.5%, which it guided for the rest of 2021 as well. Lloyds was boosted by an impairment credit of GBP656 million in the first half, following a GBP3.82 billion hit a year earlier.