Property balances grow by £167m for challenger bank

Challenger bank, Cambridge & Counties, has seen its property lending balances grow by £167m.

The bank, which has a branch in Birmingham, recorded lending of £588m in 2016, a rise of 41%.

The average size of its real estate finance loans increased as it continued to concentrate on supporting professional and corporate landlords in both the commercial and residential markets.

Simon Lindley, Commercial Director said: “Our customer centric manual underwriting and strong focus on customer service has been key to the success of our real estate loans business.

“We have also focused on the professional and corporate property investment sector, and avoided the high risk second mortgage, development and amateur buy-to-let markets.

“In terms of what we are seeing in the market, the continued redevelopment of office accommodation under Permitted Development Rights continues apace, and action taken by the government and the Bank of England saw transactions in the buy-to-let market tail off considerably towards the latter half of 2016.”

He said uncertainty following the Brexit vote saw a number of larger property deals stall, but take up eventually happened, with the property sector continuing to show a measure of resilience.

The bank recently announced record annual growth in deposits, lending and customer acquisition for the year ended December 2016.  During the year its balance sheet grew from £518m to £746m. Its loan book grew from £416m to £588m and its new asset finance business delivered growth month-on-month.  Overall, the bank’s total deposits increased by 45% to £685m.

The bank declared a pre-tax profit of £18.1m, which represented a 77% increase on the £10.2m achieved for the previous year.