Skipton Group posted mortgage balances up 8.2% to £30.9bn in 2024 from the previous year, though profit fell over the past 12 months.
The firm, which includes Skipton Building Society and estate agent Connells, added that it underwrote home loans to over 20,000 first-time buyers, a new record and equal to 44% of new lending.
It said that Connells, which also distributes mortgages, generated £31.7bn of lending for UK mortgage lenders, up 2.6% from a year ago.
The business will not release gross new mortgage lending for 2024 until it publishes its annual report next month.
It added that residential mortgages in arrears by three months or more were at 0.29% of mortgage accounts at the end of last year, compared to 0.23% 12 months ago, below the industry average of 0.91%.
However, pre-tax profit across the group fell 4.4% to £318.6m as it suffered, “downward pressure on net interest income”.
It posted a group net interest margin – the difference between what it loans to borrowers and what it pays to savers — of 1.28% from 1.53% a year ago, driven by £377m more in interest payments year-on-year.
Skipton Group chief executive Stuart Haire said: “Our group mortgage and savings growth of 8.2% and 8.9% respectively, materially beat the market and somewhat offset the reduction in margins caused by our strong member pricing strategy and Bank of England base rate reductions.”
