Northern Rock has halted payments on some of its subordinated debt to help conserve capital – its first deferred coupon payments since nationalisation. The UK bank, which recently reported first-half losses of £725m, said it had deferred payment of subordinated debt coupons – mostly tier one and upper tier two debt – where permissible, but would continue making payments on other bonds. Granite, the bank’s securitisation vehicle, will be unaffected.