ULSTER Bank received a sixth capital boost from its parent company, the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS), late last year to fight rising loan losses.

Ulster got a €175m injection from RBS in the run up to Christmas, according to documents lodged at the Companies Registration Office. That brings the total amount of capital it has swallowed from its parent group to nearly €2.3bn.

The bank posted a loss of stg£93m (€103m) in the nine months to the end of September last after loan impairments surged to stg£301m from stg£35m. While most of the impaired loans resulted from its exposure to property developers, it also had to set aside more money to cover losses on its mortgage book. Overall, 0.99% of the bank's loans were impaired at the end of the third quarter.

RBS has warned that impairment charges will be high this year because of the ongoing decline in property prices and the poor economic climate. The full details of Ulster Bank's financial performance in 2009 will not be known until RBS publishes annual results next months.

RBS chief executive Stephen Hester said in December that the bank is considering putting a "small" part of its loan book into Nama. However, the bulk of Ulster's bad loans will end up in the British government's asset protection scheme, which was set up to insure RBS and other lenders against future losses.

Figures published by Britain's Treasury ministry show some mortgages issued by Ulster Bank's First Active subsidiary will also be insured by the British government.

RBS itself has received one of the biggest bailouts in global banking, needing stg£25.5bn from UK taxpayers to shore itself up against losses. It will transfer hundreds of billions of pounds of toxic products to the APS. The bailout of RBS has left the British government with an 84% stake in the bank.

Ulster isn't the only foreign lender operating in Ireland to need a capital top-up in 2009. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) has needed €1.45bn from Lloyds Banking Group, while ACC received €175m from Rabobank, the Dutch lender that acquired it from the government in 2001.