BoE: Lending markets pick up

Since December mortgage lending rose by 0.5%, lending to small and medium sized businesses increased by 1% and lending to large businesses rose by 2%.

Richard Pike, Phoebus Software’s sales and marketing director, said: “Perhaps the election is having less of an impact on the mortgage market than many of us thought.

“Record low rates being announced on a weekly basis has got to help consumer confidence and this together with the fact that lenders seem to have eased back a little on affordability criteria should mean that completions continue to rise.

Gross borrowing from SMEs was 23% higher from January to March 2015 compared to the same period of 2014.

Richard Woolhouse. BBA chief economist, said: “Though it’s early days, it is starting to look as though borrowing by businesses is turning a corner. In particular, we can see from these figures that small and medium-sized businesses are taking on more finance which suggests that confidence is up too.

“In terms of mortgage lending, homeowners seem to be taking advantage of competitive pricing with an increase in borrowing each month this year.”