Of the £19.5bn, £3.1bn was advanced to first-time buyers. The bank’s total gross lending in 2015 was £26.1bn, as reported by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, giving it an 11.9% market share and placing it third in the UK for its value of mortgage advances.
The lender has continued its focus on increasing its digital presence within the retail banking sector.
In the first nine months of the year, it increased its UK digital customers by 18% to 4.5 million.
In August, Santander UK expanded its mobile payment capabilities to include Android Pay and launched an online remortgage application process, which aims to return a decision within 30 minutes. The system is due to be extended to homemovers and first-time buyers by the end of the year.
Santander said digitalisation was key for adapting the bank to the new way of interacting with customers.
Its developments will affect the services provided to its customers and its internal and external operations. Its digital programme will establish how to use data to generate business growth and the bank will update and modernise systems and streamlining processes.
Globally, the number of digital customers increased in 12 months by 4.1 million to 20.2 million at the end of September, a year-on-year increase of 25%. The main units are Brazil, with 6 million digital clients and the UK with over 4.5 million clients.
The bank made a new provision of £30m for past complaints relating to Payment Protection Insurance mis-selling.
Santander UK’s adjusted profit before tax, without the impact of exchange rates, was £1,491m., up 5% on the first nine months of 2015. The adjusted profit figure does not include a gain of £119m made from the sale of VISA Europe and banking reform costs of £55m. Adding these one-off gains and losses back, Santander UK’s profit before tax was £1,555m – up 9% on the same period in 2015.
