Paragon Banking Group announced on-target figures in a trading update today (23 July).
The group reported its mortgage lending totalled £409.4m in the second quarter of 2018, bringing year to date lending to £1.1bn - compared with 2017’s figure of £1.05bn.
The firm's buy-to-let pipeline rose by £71.2m across the quarter, closing at £858.8m with a focus on professional landlord business.
The update was based upon business performance from 1 October 2017 to 30 June 2018 and showed a total second quarter commercial lending amount of £179.7m, taking year to date lending to £449m and a net loan growth of £171m, accumulating a year to date growth of £393m.
The group also announced its completed purchase of Titlestone, a specialist residential property development finance firm, following the quarter end - a transaction expected to enhance post tax profits by a high single-digit percentage in 2019.
The trading update from October 2017 to June of this year detailed retail deposit balances rising to £4.9bn at 30 June, with an average cost of 1.73 per cent compared to the 1.75 per cent reported in the 2018 half-year results.
Nigel Terrington, chief executive at Paragon Banking Group, said the company is making strong progress towards its objective of being a leading specialist bank.
He said: "The core buy-to-let business continues to see strong demand from professional landlords and the addition of Titlestone is expected to accelerate the growth of our Commercial Lending arm.
"We remain on track to achieve our 2018 targets and the business is well-placed to make further strong progress in 2019."
rachel.addison@ft.com
