This morning, Lloyds Bank announced that its profits had more than doubled to £4.2 billion , primarily boosted by its reduction of capital reserves to protect against Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) pay-outs. This very short and reactive post looks at the response to the release of the figures, just over an hour ago, and contextualises the seemingly-positive news with that of the wider picture in the banking industry at the moment. The headline-grabbing figure will be the 158% surge in profits, which has not been seen by the bank since pre-Financial Crisis times. Yet, there was actually a drop in underlying profits and still the bank is setting aside resources to protect against the continued claims of negligence regarding the massive PPI scandal , although that provision has decreased from £4 billion last year to £1 billion this year. Recently, however, there have been a couple of news stories which sour this apparent success, both of which relate to issues recently comment...