Barclays has increased its total mortgage lending by almost 50% since 2008, defying the trend set by other high street lenders who have been actively reducing their mortgage business since the onset of the credit crisis.

The bank attributes its success in the mortgage sector to designing original and appealing products for new customers while also taking care of existing borrowers.

Andy Gray, managing director of mortgages, said:

“We look to reward existing Barclays bank customers with a better deal and it doesn’t matter whether that person comes through a Barclays branch or an intermediary. Our existing loyalty scheme means that our customers with a certain turnover in their current account have their application fee at zero or reduced by 50%.

“The market has probably grown something like 4-5% on the mortgage side while we’ve grown 48% since 2008 and a big part of that is retention activity, but also the offers we’ve had out there in the market.”

Gray went on to say that Barclays had sold around 50,000 Great Escape remortgage products since the range was launched in the autumn of 2011. He said that lenders were now looking more at practical solutions for customers.

“More than ever the customer is the focus of our product development. It is really integral to the way we should do business going forward and arguably looking backwards the customer didn’t feature as much in some lenders’ decisions.

“At the end of the day they are buying this product.”