NatWest said the economic fallout from the conflict in the Middle East could cost it £140m amid slowing growth and rising inflation even as it reported profits ahead of expectations. Overall, the FTSE 100 lender booked a £283m impairment charge and said that almost half of that was because of a reassessment of its economic forecast to “reflect increased geopolitical risk and weaker equity markets”. The bank said it expects its base case for UK gross domestic product growth to be only 0.4% this year, half that forecast by the International Monetary Fund earlier this month. NatWest reported a 12% year-on-year increase in operating profits to £2bn in the first three months of the year, up from £1.8bn in the same period last year. The consensus among analysts was for an average of £1.9bn. NatWest’s economic forecasts include a rise in the rate of unemployment in the UK to 5.5% this year.…