Another one in the US financial services arena, GMAC Financial Services returned to profit after nearly two years. GMAC posted its first quarterly profit since 2008 for first the quarter ended on March 31, 2010.

The company's Q1 profit stood at $162 million following a yearly loss of $675 million in 2009. The company booked revenue of $1.86 billion during the quarter, up by 6.8 per cent from the same period in the previous fiscal.

Higher interest margin, profit from sale of assets, remarkable low provision of loss on loans and better servicing income helped guided the firm to black, GMAC said in a statement.

The financial institution lowered its provision for credit losses to $145 million during the last quarter as compared to $795 million in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

Praising the company's performance, Michael Carpenter, the Chief Executive of GMAC, which will be rechristened as Ally Financial Inc. next week, said in a statement that the company's ace auto finance franchise witnessed good growth and the markets have again looked up for GMAC debt. He further added that the company has taken a few additional steps to reduce and control its risk exposure in the mortgage business.