* Gross (new) mortgage lending totalled £16.9bn, maintaining the high levels of the previous two months. After redemptions and repayments, the resulting rise in net lending, seasonally adjusted, was £5.5bn, slightly above August’s rise of £5.3bn.
* 292,800 mortgage loans with a total value of £23.3bn were approved in September; the highest monthly figures yet and 37% more than in September last year. Unlike the first half of the year, when house purchase loans accounted for only around 30% of all approvals, recent months have seen this proportion rise to 38%, though demand for remortgaging and equity withdrawal loans remains high compared to last year. The average house purchase loan continues to rise and, at £111,900 is some 29% higher than a year earlier.
* Net consumer credit rose by £0.9bn in September. However, it is notable that lending growth in the first nine months of this year, at £7.0bn, is lower than the rise of £8.7bn in the comparable period of last year.
David Dooks, BBA director of statistics, said:
"The continued buoyancy of the mortgage market is clear to see in September’s lending figures and the strength of approvals means that this is expected to continue in the near term.
Consumer credit, in total, is not growing as strongly as it did last year. Most months of this year have seen net lending increases below those of the corresponding month of 2002, with personal loan demand noticeably lower."
Mortgage Lending
* Gross lending of £16,917mn reached a new high in September, slightly above the previous peak of £16,903mn in July.
* September’s seasonally adjusted rise in net lending of £5,470mn was nearly 9% higher than the trend average of +£5,030mn over the previous six months.
* Approvals of house purchase loans were higher, 39% by number and 79% by value, than in September last year; remortgaging loans were 32% higher by number and 62% by value; and equity withdrawal loans were 41% higher by number and 41% by value.
Consumer Credit
* New borrowing on credit cards totalled £7,185mn in September. This was 7% more than the recent monthly average so that, although repayments remained fairly constant, the seasonally adjusted increase in net lending of £487mn was higher than of late.
* New lending on personal loans and overdrafts, at £3,591mn was strong, though so were net repayments; after seasonal adjustment, the rise in net lending of £399mn was below the average monthly increase of £425mn over the previous six months.
