First-time Buyers
Abbey claims one in four mortgages
Abbey, the UK’s second largest mortgage lender, owned by giant Spanish banking group Santander, issued one in every four new mortgages taken out last year.
The bank claims it accounted for 28.9% of net mortgage lending in 2008, a huge increase on its 8 per cent share in 2007, as many of its rivals withdrew from the mortgage market.
This was up from only 8% during 2007, with the bank accounting for 30.3 per cent during net lending during the second half of 2008.
The news was revealed as Abbey reported a 20% rise in pre-tax profits for 2008. Abbey, which bought Bradford & Bingley’s savings business in September 2008 and took over Alliance & Leicester a month later, attracted £5.6bn in retail deposits (savings) last year, up from £3.1bn in 2007.
Chief executive AntÛnio Horta-OsÛrio said: “We were able, in a very difficult market, to improve results but also double the size of the bank with these acquisitions. I am very pleased to have done this as it was a three-year objective.
“We are very much continuing with the same strategy which we put in place when we bought Abbey four years ago. We have tried to deliver great value for money, and so we have had more than 500,000 new accounts, 400,000 new credit card customers and deposits up 15%.”