HSBC to up mortgage lending by £2bn

Wednesday 18th July 2012

HSBC has announced that it is to up its mortgage lending this year from £15bn to £17bn.

In the first six months of 2012, HSBC approved over £10.6bn worth of mortgages to 97,000 UK borrowers. This is an increase of 16% on the same period in 2011 when the bank lent £9.1bn.

Of the total figure, £2.7bn was approved to 23,500 first-time buyers – equating to a rate of 130 a day.

Peter Dockar, head of mortgages at HSBC, said: “At a time when many other lenders are contracting their lending, we remain committed to helping more customers who aspire to own their own home, and we approved a record number of mortgages in the first half of this year.

“So we can help an increasing number of customers finance their homes, we are extending our mortgage funding pledge by an extra £2bn, meaning HSBC will make at least £17bn available to UK home owners this year.”

Last week, HSBC launched the lowest-ever five-year fix mortgage at 2.99%, available at up to 60% LTV.