HBOS Australia reported an underlying profit of $402 million in the year to December 2008, down 49 per cent on 2007, financial statements filed with ASIC show.Taking into account the sale of Bank of Western Australia to Commonwealth Bank in December the statutory loss for HBOSA in 2008 was $1.50 billion from a profit in 2007 of $781 million.That HBOSA reported an underlying profit at all in 2008 may say something about the ability of lender's with a mammoth load of troubled borrowers to charge them a wide risk margin.The overview written by the directors notes growth of 26 per cent in net interest income over 2008, excluding BankWest.Receivables, surprisingly, appear to have grown over the year, with gross loans and advances of $27.7 billion at the end of year (and after $58 billion in loans were sold to CBA).The director's overview notes $1.47 billion impaired loans and equal to 5.3 per cent of gross loans. The notes to the accounts list only impairment losses on loans of $543 million and do not otherwise analyse the impaired loans.Of $470 million in loans written off over 2008 $198 million relate to continuing operations and the balance to discontinued business.HBOSA prepared the accounts on a going concern basis, and included a minor dissertation on the disruption of capital markets over 2008 and the confirmation from Lloyds Banking Group that it is Lloyds "current intention" to ensure the group "should have at all time for the foreseeable future access to adequate resources to  continue to trade".