Despite a huge slide in profits because of compensation pay-outs, and yesterday’s announcement of a global jobs cull, Barclays took its biggest ever share of the UK mortgage market last year.
It advanced 12.8% of all mortgages, lending £18.2bn – up from £17.2bn the year before, when it had 12.1% market share.
The figures provide almost the only gleam for scandal-hit Barclays, which is to axe at least 3,700 jobs and shut its controversial tax advisory division as it bids to cut costs by £1.7bn.
Its UK retail and business banking division saw profits tumble 71% to £292m, although it said profits rose 4% to £1.5bn on an underlying basis.
However, profits were heavily impacted by mis-selling provisions, with £1.6bn put aside for PPI and £850m for interest rate swaps.
Barclays said the average PPI claim was £2,750, while around 4,000 interest rate swaps had been sold to small businesses of which around 3,000 could be the subject of mis-selling claims.
However, Barclays did demonstrate that 2012 was a year to carry on lending.
Net new mortgage lending totalled £7.2bn, up 10% from £6.5bn in 2011. The results also showed first-time buyer lending rose 7% supported by the NewBuy and FirstBuy Schemes.
Remortgaging also rose, with the bank lending one in four UK remortgages in 2012.
Andy Gray, managing director for mortgages at Barclays, said: “With one in eight mortgages coming from Barclays, this demonstrates how we are helping people to move, remortgage or take their first step on to the housing ladder.
“We will continue our commitment to helping more buyers across both intermediaries and directly through our branch network this year.”
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