| From telegraph.co.uk: Abbey, the high street lender owned by Spanish banking giant Santander, wrote one in three of all new mortgages in the three months to June, catapulting it above Halifax-owner HBOS to become Britain's biggest mortgage lender in the first half of the year.
Warning that house prices will fall 5pc-7pc this year and against a backdrop of a shrinking mortgage market, Abbey more than doubled net lending to £8.3bn in the six months to June, from £3.6bn last year. For the half-year as a whole it wrote 25.6pc of net new mortgage lending.
Abbey's dominance has been helped by rivals drawing in their horns to bolster their balance sheets. Figures from the Building Societies Association yesterday showed the mutual movement removed £526m from the market in the half as they attempted to shrink their loan books, having provided £1.32bn of new home loans last year. In total, net mortgage lending is forecast to halve to £55bn this year.
Analysts do not expect Abbey to replicate the exceptional performance of the past three months but do believe it will continue to take market share. The lender currently accounts for 9.7pc of the mortgage market and is forecast to write 15pc to 20pc of net new lending in the second half.... Full Article: Source
|