New mortgage lending up 16%

New figures from the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) show February’s gross mortgage lending at £8.6 billion, having staged a recovery from January’s low of £8 billion.

The number of house purchase loans approved by the UK’s banks leapt 16% year-on-year, to 35,276, having managed a slight increase on January’s figure of 35,154.

Furthermore, the value of the typical house purchase approval stood at £140,800, or 11.5% more than in February 2009.

However, gross lending fell short of the previous six months average (£9.2 billion) and showed a 5.2% decline on a year earlier.

In addition, February’s net mortgage lending (gross lending with repayments and redemptions stripped out) lagged behind the previous six month average of £3 billion, at £2.8 billion.

Remortaging volumes fell slightly on January, to 21,101, (six month average 21,945) and approvals for equity release and other purposes numbered 17,347, compared with a previous six month average of 18,887.

Commenting on the figures, the BBA’s statistics director, David Dooks, says: “High street banks continue to provide the majority of all new lending for mortgages, though the volume of approvals remains subdued after the year-end stamp-duty change.”

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