Specialist lender Together has reported a 24.9% rise in average monthly loan originations to £171.7m in its quarterly results to 31st December 2018, compared with the previous year. Together announced a profit before tax of £31.2m, while the group’s loan book reached a new high of £3.25bn.

View Article

Brightone Law has found that a surge of short-term lenders have entered the bridging market over the last 12 months, up 50% on 2017. The Association of Short-Term Lenders says bridging lending amongst its members rose by 15% in 2018. Senior partner Jonathan Newman said: “So many of our clients were once those disruptor new boys on the block and now, are established, key players, leading brands and the benchmark for new entrants.”

View Article

The latest mortgage trends report from UK Finance reveals the number of first-time home buyers in the UK reached a 12-year high last year, but new buy-to-let (BTL) purchases fell sharply as tax and regulatory changes weighed on the sector. There was an 11.5% drop in BTL home purchases between 2017 and 2018 and the £9bn of new lending seen in the sector last year was 15% lower than the year before. Remortgage figures were much stronger, with a 25.3% year-on-year increase in new BTL remortgages to 12,400 recorded in December. Meanwhile, the first-time buyer market was buoyant, with 370,000 new first-time buyer mortgages completing last year, a 1.9% rise and the highest number since 2006.

View Article

MPs have suggested that dying high streets could be revitalised by creating “1970s-style banking hubs”. Housing several banks together in the same building would be cost effective, aid customers and help local business communities, the MPs said. They added that drastic action needed to be taken to prevent bank branch closures which are turning Britain’s high streets into “ghost towns”.

Daily Express

New figures have shown that the number of homes repossessed in the UK fell to its lowest level since 1980 last year. There were 4,580 homes repossessed by mortgage lenders from owners who were unable to keep up with repayments on their home loans. Low mortgage rates and a less aggressive attitude from lenders has meant low levels of repossession in recent years. The figures from UK Finance showed that the number of landlords falling behind on mortgage repayments was unchanged in the final quarter of last year compared with the same three months in 2017.

View Article

Official figures have revealed that house prices grew by 2.5% in the year to December, the lowest annual rise since July 2013 when there was 2.3% growth. The average home now costs under £231,000, according to the Office for National Statistics and the Land Registry. Price changes varied across the regions, falling in London by 0.6% and by 1% in the North East, but rising by more than 5% in the West Midlands, Wales and Northern Ireland.

View Article

MPs have heard how banks are closing tens of thousands of accounts a year in the UK as fraudsters use social media sites to lure young people into becoming “money mules”. Santander said it has closed about 24,000 accounts a year on suspicion of fraud, with 11,000 of those suspected money mule cases – where fraudsters use genuine accounts to process illegal payments linked to terrorism, money laundering and other economic crimes. Susan Allen, the head of retail business banking at Santander UK, said that people often did not understand the potential consequences of being a money mule, including difficulty in opening bank accounts and obtaining mortgages, other loans and credit cards, and potentially prison sentences. Nationwide added that it had closed about 12,000 accounts a year due to fraud.

The Guardian

Cash points are closing at a rate of 16 per day, the fastest ever recorded, according to a new study. Figures from the consumer group Which? show cash machines disappeared at a rate of 488 per month between June and December last year. Over the six months, 2,962 cash points were taken out of service, representing a 4.6% decline in the overall network of 63,152. The Federation of Small Businesses and Which? are today launching a campaign calling for a dedicated regulator to be put in place to ensure companies and shoppers who rely on cash are not left behind. FSB national chairman Mike Cherry said: “The rapid pace of bank branch and cashpoint closures is hurting small businesses all over the UK. Millions of small firms have customers who want to pay using notes and coins. The vast majority of shoppers either use cash frequently or want to see access to it maintained.”

The Daily Telegraph

The Mail reports that a whistle-blower has claimed that Lloyds Bank conspired with partner companies to destroy small businesses in the wake of the financial crisis so their assets could be sold off to shore up their own balance sheets. According to previously unpublished documents, a turnaround business called Baronsmead allegedly conspired with Lloyds to push firms into administration even when they could be saved. The Financial Conduct Authority has now interviewed the whistle-blower and evidence has been passed on to the National Crime Agency.

Daily Mail

Venture capital and private equity investment in British fintech hit an all-time high of $3.3bn (£2.6bn) in 2018, according to data from Innovate Finance, 18% higher than in 2017. Growth capital from private equity players rose 57% to $1.6bn, suggesting that the UK’s startup scene is quickly becoming a scale-up industry. London performed well ahead of its European counterparts – taking in almost five times Germany’s $716m for fintech investment last year. Global venture capital investment in fintech in 2018 reached a record $36.6bn, a jump of 148% from 2017 and up 329% over five years.

City AM

The Standard’s Anthony Hilton says the steady increase in mortgage lending by banks over 30 years has coincided with a decline in business lending. He notes that before deregulation, banks were the capital market for business and accounted for most of the loans. Now they are leaders of housing finance, their balance sheet is some 70% mortgages and only perhaps 15% (and some say 10%) of business loans, he adds.

Evening Standard

KPMG has announced it is withdrawing its small business accounting (SBA) service in the UK.

View Article

London and several areas in the South East continued to outperform the UK in terms of productivity in 2017. Workers in the capital are the most productive in the UK, creating 50% more output per hour than the UK average, according to figures from the ONS. Those in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire came joint second in the UK, 14% above the national average. Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly was the least productive region, at 32% below average.

View Article

A study from Knight Frank reveals that London has kept its crown as the world’s top destination for property investment. Buyers spent £16.2bn on offices in the capital in 2018, compared with £14.3bn invested in Manhattan, £12.1bn in Paris and £8.4bn in Hong Kong. Capital from the Far East accounted for nearly half (47%) of all investment in central London offices.

Evening Standard

TSB has reported a loss of £105.4m last year, down from a profit of £162.7m the previous year. The loss was pinned on the bank’s disastrous IT upgrade which resulted in £330.2m in costs, which would be partly be offset by £153m that TSB said it expected to recoup from computer provider Sabis. Some 80,000 customers switched their bank account away from TSB in 2018, 30,000 more than in 2017. The bank added that customer deposits fell by 4.7% to £29.1bn last year, which the bank said was due to planned changes in savings products. Customer lending also decreased by 2.7% to £30bn. TSB’s executive chairman Richard Meddings commented: “Last year was TSB’s most challenging year. But we enter 2019 with renewed ambition to re-emerge as the leading challenger bank in the UK – firmly on the side of the customer.”

View Article

Bridging & Commercial gathers opinion on whether lenders are considering expanding internationally. Paul McFadyen, managing director at Glenhawk, said that his firm was focused on growing its offering in the UK, but added: “We have senior members of the team with experience specifically in the US, so this would naturally be an area of interest to us.” Jack Coombs, director at Aspen Bridging, suggests that it may take some time for firms to expand overseas. He explains: “I think that the UK market is sufficient for now. International diversification requires a model of business which can be applied easily. Technology is the only answer and most firms are nowhere near having that capacity.”

View Article

MT Finance’s Gareth Lewis has said that demand for bridging finance will remain strong and it will continue to provide support for property investors despite the continued uncertainty generated by Brexit. Mr Lewis said: “With Brexit still uncertain, the first quarter’s data will be interesting reading, but I expect demand for bridging finance will remain strong and the product will provide vital support for property investors.” Phil Jay, director at Complete FS, added that data has shown that the sector is resilient. “Although the bridging market will not be immune to the shockwaves surrounding Brexit, the industry is fortunate to have a broad base of lenders that can currently more than compensate for any likely loss of liquidity, if funding tightens,” he states.

View Article

Yorkshire Building Society reports that an increasing number of borrowers are choosing to fix their mortgages for five years or more, 44% up in December 2018 on an annual basis. Janice Barber, mortgage manager at Yorkshire Building Society, said: “While homebuyers’ reluctance to purchase a house during these uncertain times is cooling the housing market, borrowers are rushing to secure new deals that will see them through Brexit and beyond.”

View Article

The government’s annual English Housing Survey has showed that the number of people taking out mortgages grew for the first time in a decade last year while the private rental sector stalled. After ten years of decline, the number of mortgages issued to households rose by 5% to 6.9m. Lindsay Judge, of the Resolution Foundation think tank, said: “This rise is being driven by factors including improving credit conditions and the growing importance of the bank of mum and dad.”

View Article

Metro Bank has admitted that the Prudential Regulation Authority found a flaw in its accounts last week despite previously insisting that it spotted the error. Its shares fell by 40% last week after the bank said it had identified the misclassification of a large number of commercial loans when calculating risk-weighted assets following a year-end review. However, the bank said yesterday that the PRA had “helped to identify potential inconsistencies in certain loans”.

View Article