SHARE PREMIUM ACCOUNT (Tables)

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2017

Disclosure For Share Premium Account Explanatory [Abstract]

Disclosure of share premium accounts

	2017 £m		2016 £m		2015 £m
At 1 January		17,622		17,412		17,281
Issued under employee share schemes		12		–		–
Redemption of preference shares1		–		210		131
At 31 December		17,634		17,622		17,412

1 During the year ended 31 December 2016, the Company redeemed all of its outstanding 6.267% Non-cumulative Fixed to Floating Rate Callable US Dollar Preference Shares at their combined sterling equivalent par value of £210 million. These preference shares had been accounted for as subordinated liabilities. On redemption an amount of £210 million was transferred from the distributable merger reserve to the share premium account (2015: £131 million in respect of the redemption of the outstanding 6.0884% Non-cumulative Fixed to Floating Rate Preference Shares and 5.92% Non-cumulative Fixed to Floating Rate Preference Shares).