The bank also said it is ahead of its first-time buyer target of £3bn for 2012 having lent £1.2bn already.
Peter Dockar, HSBC head of mortgages, said the bank was planning to build its market share this year and the £15bn target was a minimum it had set itself.
And he revealed the lender was hoping to take 11% of the mortgage market this year.
If it keeps lending at the Q1 rate it will take nearly 15% of the gross market in 2012 based on a market size of £133bn as the Council of Mortgage Lenders predicts.
Dockar said he suspected a combination of the end of the first-time buyer stamp duty holiday and standard variable rates rising across the market had driven demand in Q1.
He said: “We’ve been looking to grow our market share. Of stock it’s currently between 5.5% and 6% but as long as it remains profitable and the demand is there we want to continue to grow that.”
The lender’s gross lending figures put it 9% ahead of last year and 18% ahead of lending levels last year on first-time buyers specifically.
It calculated that it lent an average of £93m per week or £19m per day to first-time buyers helping over 10,000 borrowers take their first steps onto the property ladder; an average of 780 first time-buyers per week or 160 per day in Q1 2012.
