According to Lloyds’ Q1 financial results, the lender’s UK mortgages segment stood at £304.6bn, a fall from £307.5bn in the same period last year.
This figure includes its open mortgage book and closed mortgage book, and gross lending figures are not reported.
The lender said that the fall in mortgage balances was expected due to the “refinancing of the higher maturities” in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Lloyds said that, in the first quarter of the year, there had been “an improvement in new to arrears and flows to default”, coming after an increase last year due to “legacy variable rate customers”.
The company said that its statutory profit before tax was £1.6bn, which is 28% down on the same period last year.
The drop in profit was attributed to lower net interest income (NII) and higher operating expenses, but was partially offset by a lower impairment charge.
‘Continuing to deliver in line with expectations’
The bank reported an underlying impairment charge of £57m, which is down from £243m last year.
It added that its net interest margin (NIM) came to 2.95%, a drop from 3.22% in Q1 last year. The firm said that the lower margin reflects “headwinds due to deposit churn and asset margin compression, particularly in the mortgage book as it refinances in a lower-margin environment”.
Charlie Nunn (pictured), Lloyds group chief executive, said: “The group is continuing to deliver in line with expectations in the first quarter of 2024, with solid net income, cost discipline and strong asset quality. Our performance provides us with further confidence around our strategic ambitions and 2024 and 2026 guidance.
“Guided by our purpose, we are continuing to support customers and successfully execute against our strategic outcomes, as highlighted in the third of our strategic seminars last month. This underpins our ambition of higher, more sustainable returns that will deliver for all of our stakeholders as we continue to help Britain prosper.”
In its full-year results for 2023, the lender reported a £5.5bn profit after tax, which was 41% up on the year before.
