LONDON: The Co-operative Bank has lost nearly 30,000 account holders.

The Co-operative Bank has announced pretax losses of £75.8m for the first six months of this year and admitted that “much needs to be done” to stabilise an institution that has seen 28,000 customers leave since January.

The deficit is a significant narrowing of the £844.6m loss during the same period in 2013 but the bank admitted that a year of upheaval, which involved its parent organisation, the Co-operative Group, ceding control to US hedge funds, had been followed by the loss of 28,199 current accounts in the six months to 30 June.

Describing every customer loss as a “mortal wound”, the chief executive, Niall Booker, said the bank was not expected to be in profit this year or in 2015 and there would continue to be job losses and a further 25 branch closures.

“We are still guiding that we won’t make profits in 2014 and 2015 and we are not changing that guidance,” he said on Friday morning. The bank has not said whether it expects to be in profit by 2016.

Booker said the “deep-rooted issues” would continue to affect performance for some time. The bank’s overall loss last year, caused by overambitious growth plans, was £1.3bn.

“Considering the scale of the challenge we faced a year ago we are encouraged by the progress made to ensure the stability of the bank. By the measures of capital and liquidity the bank is considerably stronger than it was a year ago. We are ahead of schedule in the disposal of non-core assets and have improved governance, particularly at board level. However, the issues we continue to face in building a sustainable business are deep-rooted and there remains much to be done,” he said.

“Transforming the organisation into a viable and profitable business which generates capital in the long term still requires significant change – both operationally and culturally.

“The core bank continues to remain stable. In the first half of the year more people switched into the bank than in the second half of 2013. Although we have also seen an increase in the number of people switching out of the bank, the net numbers remain small relative to our total number of current account customers whose continuing loyalty is deeply appreciated. Recent trends suggest this net outflow of retail customers has slowed.”

The bank had a net outflow of 28,199 accounts. Booker said: “The loss of any customer is a mortal wound for anyone like me who has worked in the industry for a long period of time.” He added that the results, while disappointing, were not as bad as they could have been. —The Guardian