Santander UK Group has reported an increase in customer deposits but continues to struggle in the mortgage market, seeing a fall in mortgage lending for the nine months to 30 September 2017.
While funds in retail banking current accounts were up £2.4bn and commercial banking deposits up £1.4 bn, net mortgage lending was down £0.2bn reflecting the bank's decision to compete on service not price, which it stated as "managing pricing action in a competitive market as it focuses on customer service and retention".
The Bank made a profit before tax of £1.5bn, up 1 per cent year on year and adjusted profit before tax was £1.6bn, up 10 per cent year on year.
Nathan Bostock, chief executive officer, at Santander said: "We continue to make good progress with both strategic and operational improvements helping to deliver sustainable results against the backdrop of an uncertain environment.
"The core businesses performed well with net interest income growth, improving efficiency and continued good credit quality.
"Santander has provided competition to retail banking in the UK with the investments we have made in products and services designed to suit customer's changing needs and delivered in a way that works for them. We aspire to bring the same level of competition and choice to the SME market. We're well positioned to do so as the only scale challenger to the big four high street banks.
