Abbey UK Takes Huge Share of Mortgage Market

Spanish owned Abbey National have continued in the third-quarter to bite large chunks of new mortgage lending, due to the weaker rivals leaving the mortgage loans market.

Abbey is owned by Santander – Spain’s largest bank, who have recently acquired Bradford & Bingley saving business and Alliance & Leicester. The bank has seen a profit jump of 20 percent taking it to £737 million in the first nine months of 2008, the same period last year saw profits at £613 million.

The strong inflow of retail deposits and mortgage lending expansion helped boost Santander’s profits.
Abbey in the second quarter of this year took 42 percent of the new mortgage lending, and in the third quarter took 28 percent. Net mortgage lending which in the second quarter was £5.4 billion fell sharply to £2.5 billion in the third quarter of this year.

Abbeys repossession and arrears rates are below the industry average the UK lender have said that they have noticed the housing slump is increasing the arrears and repossessions. In the second quarter of 2008 Abbey repossessed 589 properties compared the third quarter of 2008 where the figure rose to 802 repossessions by Abbey.

Source: Propertyweek