Skipton Group’s mortgage balance rose 8.2% from the previous year to £30.9 billion, despite a decline in profits over the past 12 months.
The company includes Skipton Building Society and real estate agent Connells, who added that it offers home loans to more than 20,000 first-time home buyers, a new record, equaling 44% of new loans.
It said Connells also allocated mortgages, bringing £31.7 billion in loans to UK mortgage lenders, an increase of 2.6% from the same period last year.
The business will not release new mortgages for 2024 until its annual report is released next month.
It added that residential mortgages that were defaulting on three months or more were 0.29% of mortgage accounts at the end of last year, compared with 0.23% 12 months ago, which was 0.91% below the industry average.
However, the group’s pre-tax profit fell 4.4% to £318.6 million as it suffered “net interest income pressure”.
It released a collective net interest margin – the difference between borrowers’ loans and savers’ loans – an increase of £377 million in interest payments year-on-year starting at 1.53% a year ago.
Stuart Haire, CEO of Skipton Group, said: “Our group mortgage and savings growth was 8.2% and 8.9% respectively, significantly beat the market and somewhat offset due to our strong member pricing strategy and the Bank of England. The decrease in profit margins caused by lower base interest rates.”
