Abbey has trebled new mortgage lending

Halifax is set to be knocked off the number one slot as Britain’s biggest mortgage company, Spanish owned Abbey is set to take the number one position.

Abbey won more than 25% of business in the first six months of the year which will be announced in a report out on Tuesday, beating long term leader, HBOS-owned Halifax.

Abbey hasn’t really been affected by the complex mortgage-backed investments due to being part of Spain’s Santander group, so it’s enjoyed a high share of the market during 2008, allowing Abbey to take new mortgage business to 15.9% in the first quarter of 2008. This is a huge jump from the 4.9% in 2007. So Abbey certainly hasn’t been scaling back the lending un-like most of the other lenders in midst of credit crunch crisis.

Abbey are expected to show profits rising of £4.87 billion in the first six months of the year, which beats last year’s £3.58 billion, figures reported in the Mail on Sunday. The picture isn’t so bright for the HBOS profits, the forecast is a drop of more than 50% to £1.3 billion, the drop has been caused by provisions taken against investments in US sub-prime mortgages and other products, it’s also looking likely HBOS will report bad debt charges linked to repossessions of properties in Britain.

Source: ukpress

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