UK – Lloyds Banking Group would have seen losses increase by £40m (€46m) last year had it applied new accounting guidelines to its 2012 accounts, the UK banking group said.

Rounding out a week of results from listed companies in the UK that saw pension deficits increase by one-third at the country’s largest private broadcaster ITV, the bank said changes to IAS19 – ending the ability to defer actuarial gains and losses through the corridor approach – would have lowered its net of tax income by £1.6bn.

“As at 31 December 2012, unrecognised actuarial losses of some £2.7bn and deferred tax assets of £0.6bn would have been recognised, and shareholders’ equity would have been £2.1bn lower,” Lloyds Banking Group’s annual report added.

It said the company continued to “liaise with defined benefit pension scheme trustees with regard to appropriately de-risking the pension scheme portfolio”.

It added that the shift from the retail prices index to the consumer prices index as a measure of inflation protection had reduced liabilities across the company’s defined benefit schemes by £258m.

The warning about lower post-tax profits was echoed by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, which noted that, had IAS19 changes come into effect last year and not from January 2013, after-tax profit would have been £84m lower.

Publishing its results earlier in the week, broadcaster ITV said falling discount rates had led to the funding shortfall in its pension scheme increasing to £551m on an IAS19 basis, up from £390m at the end of December 2011.

The increase came despite a £72m annual funding contribution by the company.

ITV has sought to de-risk its pension scheme over the past two years.

In August 2011, it announced a £1.7bn longevity swap, agreed with Credit Suisse.

Separately, Centrica – owner of British Gas – said it had revised the deficit reduction schedule with its trustees and that the contributions would now be paid via an asset-backed contribution arrangement.

Following the 2009 triennial valuation, the company agreed to pay £6m in 2011 and hand the deeds of a power station to the trustees, followed by £57m a year in payments through to 2016.

The company’s 2012 report said this schedule had changed, following the most recent triennial valuation.

“Based on the valuation, the group and the trustees agreed a revised schedule for deficit payments consisting of an amount of £37m paid in the year to 31 December 2012 and £77m per annum from 2013 to 2016.”

It added that the deficit payments would be made via a newly launched limited partnership, funded through £84m of loans owed Centrica that would be used by the pension funds to buy a stake in the partnership.

“The schemes’ partnership interests entitle them to a distribution from the income of the partnership of £22m per annum for four years,” the report noted.

Centrica said the partnership did not “meet the definition of a plan asset” and had therefore not been included on the 2012 balance sheet.

“Distributions from the partnership to the schemes will be recognised as scheme assets in the future as they occur,” it added.

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