MortgagesSep 4 2015

Lloyds is biggest lender for second year in a row

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Lloyds is biggest lender for second year in a row

Lloyds Banking Group has retained its place as the largest mortgage lender in terms of gross lending, with £40.3bn and an estimated market share of just under 20 per cent in 2014.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders table showed Lloyds was way out ahead of its nearest rival Santander, which had gross lending of £27.5bn and a market share of 13.5 per cent.

Nationwide was by far the biggest building society, taking third spot with 2014 gross lending of £26.9bn and an estimated market share of 13.2 per cent.

In third and fourth were Barclays – £20.3bn and 10 per cent – and the Royal Bank of Scotland – £19.7bn and 9.7 per cent.

The CML stated that aggregate gross lending last year showed strong growth, increasing by 14 per cent to £203bn - excluding lending to housing associations, which the Bank of England has recently removed from its mortgage lending data.

This figure was still a long way from the levels seen at the peak in 2007, when aggregate lending totalled £357bn, according to the revised Bank of England data.

This year’s data continues to be boosted by government home-buyer initiatives and ultra low interest rates, which give a stimulus to the housing market that was not there before the credit crunch.

The CML noted that notwithstanding this, levels of activity and competition in the market in 2014 were looking more ‘normal’ than that seen throughout the credit crunch.

On the face of it 2014 looks like a year of relative stability, but the council pointed to various movements up and down the rankings, driven by lending opportunities and challenges, as well as different business and commercial plans.

At the top, Santander saw a second successive year of strong growth – up 50 per cent on 2013 – to regain second position on the list.

Overall, the six largest lenders saw growth in activity of a healthy 17 per cent, but the lenders below this (those ranked seventh to 20th) saw much stronger growth – by 46 per cent overall.

“Noteable among these, four lenders experienced very significant growth in volumes, resulting in each moving a number of places up the gross lending table: Bank of Ireland doubled its lending in 2015, and OneSavings Bank (88 per cent), Paragon (75 per cent) and Clydesdale (61 per cent) also saw strong increases in volume,” explained the CML.

peter.walker@ft.com