The Lloyds Banking Group, which is the largest bank in the UK following their merger with struggling HBOS in January, has posted huge losses of around £4bn in the first six months of 2009.

The significant loss figure is being attributed to spiralling debts that were absorbed by Lloyds from HBOS after the takeover of the bank. The actual cause is thought to be because Lloyds have had to write-down a large number of the HBOS assets as their value has either depreciated or was less than originally estimated.

Lloyds Banking Group is 43% state-owned after they accepted a sum of money during their takeover of HBOS, which brought up to £10.7bn of debt from the bank, which was facing serious financial diffculties at the time.