The provider increased lending to small and medium-sized businesses by 18% and by wrote one-in-five mortgages to UK households. Net mortgage lending was £1.5bn.
On announcing its results the company said: “We’ve seen a continued improvement in our cost to income ratio, which is down from 70% when Santander acquired Abbey to around 39% now and well below our competitors’ average of around 56%. With our continual focus on efficiency and by remaining “best-in-class” we can continue to pass the benefits to our customers through better, value for money products, a fact confirmed by continuing to have more best-buy mentions than any of our competitors.
“The stock of properties in possession represents only 0.07% of the overall portfolio versus CML average of 0.14% (as at Q4 2009). In terms of 3 month plus arrears, this is 1.41% but compares very favourably to the CML average of 2.38% (Q4 ‘09). Both the Abbey and Alliance & Leicester brand remains significantly better than the industry based on the most recent CML figures for arrears. Equally, both brands comprise of prime lending stock, with reasonable LTV distribution.”
