By Elliot Gulliver-Needham Arbuthnot Banking’s profit dipped in the first half of the year as existing fixed-rate deposits continued to reprice onto higher terms as they were renewed. The merchant bank recorded £20.8m in underlying profit before tax in the first half of the year, compared to £29.3m in the same six months of 2023. The drop in profit came largely due to the 12-month lag between interest rate hikes from the Bank of England and how the bank’s existing fixed-rate deposits are priced. The average cost of deposits rose to 3.2 per cent, compared to 1.9 per cent in the same period last…