PROVIDENCE – The Royal Bank of Scotland, the parent company of Providence-based Citizens Financial Group, said last week that it will take a $327.1 million write-down in the third quarter – a number that could have been worse if not for new accounting rules that allow it to treat some assets as long-term investments.

That reclassification increased operating profit by $1.9 billion, the bank said. Excluding write-downs and bad-debt charges, operating profit rose 7 percent in the first nine months of the year, Edinburgh-based RBS said.

The bank said “significant risks” remain and that executives could not accurately forecast the results for the last half of 2008, Forbes.com reported. But the bank said steps to reduce risk on its balance sheet and the possible reduction in goodwill could hurt results. RBS has recently launched an effort to raise $31.2 billion in new capital, mostly through issuing new shares.

Citizens Bank of Rhode Island is a subsidiary of Providence-based Citizens Financial Group Inc., a commercial bank holding company that has about 1,600 branches and 3,200 ATMs in 13 states and non-branch offices in about 40 states. Citizens Financial is owned by the Edinburgh-based Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc. Additional information is available at CitizensBank.com.