The results were helped by a 26% increase in first-time buyer lending compared to 30 June 2011. Barclays said participation in the government’s NewBuy scheme had seen the lender take a third of all applications.
The lender also attributed the rise in first-time buyer lending to the launch of Helpful Start which makes it easier for parents to help their children buy a home by assisting with the affordability of a mortgage.
The uplift in overall lending was also supported through the success of the Great Escape remortgage package which has helped homeowners that have been impacted by competitors raising their standard variable rates earlier this year.
Barclays estimates this will save customers £5m in reduced mortgage payments over the next two years by switching to Barclays.
Buy-to-let lending also rose which the lender said was down to it sustaining its loan to value threshold at 75% to respond to the strong rental market.
Andy Gray, head of mortgages at Barclays, said: “These figures demonstrate how we are helping people to move, remortgage or take their first step onto the housing ladder. By increasing our lending to UK homeowners and specifically our support to families during 2012, we are supporting more customers than ever before. We will continue to spread that commitment across both intermediaries and directly through our branch network this year.”
The average loan to value for new mortgages was 55% while the average loan to value of the mortgage book was 44%.
The lender reports having 7,000 additional mortgage accounts bringing its book up to 932,000 compared to 30 June 2011.
Elsewhere in savings Barclays is outpacing the market growth with 4.8% uplift compared to 3.6% for the industry which has predominantly been driven by delivering a competitive instant access ISA which took almost half (45.8%) of consumers applications across the industry in the peak period April 2012. The bank has grown its savings customer base by 500,000, now up to 15.6m.
