The group, which includes brands such as Halifax and BM Solutions, posted lending figures of £26.2bn for the year to 31 December 2012, down on the £28bn recorded during the previous 12 months.

This result leaves Lloyds Banking Group as the biggest mortgage lending bank, ahead of Barclays, Santander and RBS. HSBC has not yet announced its results for the last year but lent £13.3bn in 2011.

The group said that the average loan-to-value of its mortgage book grew from 55.9% to 56.4% year-on-year. For new mortgages taken out during the year the figure was 62.6%, up marginally from 62.1% in 2011.

However, 11.7% of the group’s total mortgage book retains a loan-to-value ratio of over 100%. The number of mortgages subject to forbearance fell by a third from 1.2% in 2011 to 0.8% last year.

The group posted a total loss of £570m during 2012.

Group chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio said in a statement that the group’s had provided mortgages for over a quarter of first-time buyers in the past year.

“For our UK retail customers, we provided £26.2 billion of gross new mortgage lending in 2012,” he said.

“This included supporting over 55,000 customers in buying their first home, equivalent to one in every four first time buyers.

“We also launched a number of innovative shared equity and shared ownership mortgage offers as well as supporting the Local Lend a Hand Scheme which has helped over 900 first-time buyers to become homeowners.