A £744,000 write back enabled Heartwood Wealth, Handelsbanken's UK wealth and investment management subsidiary, to boost pre-tax profits by 41 percent to £2.45 million for the year to 31 December 2019.

The write back was contained in the firm's annual report and accounts and was in relation to the 2018 accrual made to Handlesbanken’s group profit sharing scheme.

The percentage increase in profits may have been significant. But at £710,000 million the improvement on the £1.74 million reported for 2018 was £34,000 less than the writeback.

Although client numbers increased by eight percent and assets under...