Tesco personal finance increasingly popularity

Nearly 5 million people used Tesco personal finance products last year, an increase of 700,000. These extra customers resulted in a 26.5 per cent increase in profits, to a total of £202 million.

The personal finance products are provided by Scottish widows and branded by Tesco.

Terry Leahy, chief executive of Tesco, said: "These results again demonstrate the broad appeal of the Tesco brand. They also show that our new growth businesses - in international, in non-food and in services - have contributed as much profit as the entire business was making in 1997."

Sales for Tesco as a whole increased from £30.8 billion to £34.7 billion over the last 12 months, breaking UK records by providing the company with £2 billion of profit.