LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - British lender Nationwide reported an 18 percent drop in its underlying half-year profit, and called for changes in the way contributions to the UK's depositor compensation scheme are set.
Nationwide, the country's second-biggest mortgage lender, said its underlying pretax profit for the year to Sept. 30 was 322 million pounds ($505.5 million), down from 394 million pounds in the same period last year.
Nationwide, which is owned by its savers and borrowers, also said it planned to lobby for a review of how individual banks' contributions towards the cost of funding the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme -- used to compensate savers in the event of a banking collapse -- are determined.
"It is highly regrettable that the cost of failure of banks who took on substantially greater levels of risk than we are prepared to should be borne by Nationwide's members," the lender said.
(Reporting by Myles Neligan, editing by Will Waterman) ($1=.6370 Pound) Keywords: NATIONWIDE/

(myles.neligan@reuters.com; +44 207 542 13 73)

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