Housing market hotting up -BBA

The British Bankers’ Associations today published its High Street Banking Statistics for June 2015 that also showed remortgaging was some 20 per cent higher, “probably reflecting borrowers’ appetite to lock in to current fixed rates and gain certainty over their future outgoings”.

Lending to larger companies continued to be subdued, though, as alternative capital market finance grew by some £8.9 billion in the first half of 2015, while the the proportion of active credit card accounts is at its highest for 4 years.

Richard Woolhouse, chief economist at the BBA, said: “The housing market is beginning to hot up again, with a pick-up in the number of mortgage approvals for the last month. Interestingly, we’ve also seen an increase in the number of people remortgaging, which could be down to savvy borrowers taking advantage of competitive deals on fixed-rate mortgages ahead of a possible rise in interest rates.

“Lending to some business sectors continues to show good results, although in the case of real estate, banks are being cautious as they try to refinance bad loans.

“It’s good news that savings deposits are also up this month, as consumers put away a little something extra for a rainy day.”