Lloyds beats lending targets March 23, 2011 Part-nationalised bank Lloyds Banking Group has met its targets for lending to businesses and for mortgages, it has announced. The high street lender extended £11.7bn in lending to small and mid-sized businesses and £37bn to larger companies in the year to February 2011, beating its annual target by £4.7bn. It also provided £23.5bn in gross [...]
Businesses pay back debt as lending falls again March 18, 2011 Lending to businesses fell again in January, new data from the Bank of England have shown. Net monthly lending fell by £1.2bn as businesses paid back more debt and boosted bank balances rather than take on loans. On a three-month basis lending fell 1.1 per cent in January, while on a 12-month basis it fell [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 8, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES MOVE TO SYNTHETIC US JUNK BONDS Demand is growing for “synthetic” financial instruments that enable investors to take positions in the US junk bond market without owning the underlying securities. The instruments, created by using credit derivatives on junk bond or high-yield indices, resemble transactions linked to US mortgages that proliferated before the [...]
Profits double at Persimmon as sales falter March 1, 2011 HOUSEBUILDER Persimmon warned yesterday that the weak mortgage market will continue to dampen sales this year, after almost doubling its pre-tax profit to £153.9m in 2010. While Persimmon sold 4.5 per cent more homes last year, the firm said completions tailed off towards the end of 2010 amid a tough mortgage market and economic fears. [...]
UK housing market in moderate pick up March 1, 2011 SIGNS of life emerged from the UK’s ailing housing market yesterday, with mortgage approvals edging upwards and house prices recording an unexpected rise. Approvals rebounded by seven per cent from December’s slump, to number 45,723 in January, according to the Bank of England. Meanwhile, the Nationwide house price index was up 0.3 per cent in [...]
Mortgage approvals pick up in January March 1, 2011 Mortgage approvals picked up more than expected in January and mortgage lending rose to its highest in almost a year, Bank of England figures showed. However, consumer credit contracted at its fastest pace in over a year and money supply growth remained weak, suggesting overall credit conditions remained far from normal at a time of [...]
Appetite for borrowing stays low as mortgage market remains in slump February 23, 2011 BRITAIN’S slump in mortgage lending continued in January, the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) revealed yesterday. Mortgage approvals for house purchases stuck at 28,932 for the month – virtually unchanged from December’s figure of 28,907, which was close to a two-year low. Mortgage approvals tumbled 20.9 per cent year-on-year, to less than half the average monthly [...]
UK property market stagnant February 23, 2011 The UK property market is still stalled, according to figures from the British Bankers’ Association. The BBA said mortgages approved by its members in January for home buyers were 29 per cent lower than a year ago. They approved just 28,932 loans for house purchase, although this was slightly higher than in December. Meanwhile property [...]
BoE says mortgage lending flat in January February 18, 2011 The country’s major lenders approved 41,000 mortgages for house purchase in January, the Bank of England said on Friday, the same number as in December and a further sign that the housing market remains in the doldrums. The BoE, updating its Trends in Lending statistics, said net mortgage lending picked up slightly in January to [...]
The top ten real causes of the crisis February 9, 2011 IN the end, Merlin turned out a damp squib. This is goodish news, because the deal is based on a faulty interpretation of the crisis. Here are the ten most important causes of our problems. 1) Loose, ultra-interventionist monetary policy from central banks that kept stepping in whenever growth slowed or the stock market fell. [...]