Kensington Mortgages adds funder in plans to lend £1.4bn more this year

This will allow Kensington to fund close to £1.4bn worth of new buy-to-let and owner-occupied mortgages this year.

As part of plans to lend more, Kensington added National Australia Bank as a new funder alongside Citigroup and BNP Paribas.

This is one of the largest UK mortgage warehouse lines for new residential mortgage originations. Despite market volatility due to Brexit uncertainty, this larger warehouse facility continues the success of Kensington’s wholesale funding platform.

Alex Maddox, capital markets director for Kensington Mortgages (pictured), told Mortgage Solutions that Kensington has issued over £8bn of securitisations since 2015, so its lending is the benchmark for specialist mortgage lenders.

“The good performance of our loans, combined with our securitisation program means that banks are confident providing  us with the increased funding, as well as the time extension of the warehouse line that we announced previously.

“We are in an extended period of uncertainty as a result of Brexit and broader geopolitical issues. There have also been significant changes to the regulation relating to securitisation. As a result, we have seen less activity in the securitisation market this year and so investors are keen to look at deals from issuers they trust and that are priced fairly. Looking forward, this is likely to continue until the uncertainty around Brexit clears.”

Last year, Kensington originated £1.1bn of new loans which represented an increase in volume of 22 per cent versus the previous year, and the lender expects a similar level of growth this year.

In March, the platform publically placed its latest securitisation transaction called Finsbury Square 2019-1 which raised a further £535m of funding for Kensington, with Citi, BNP, NAB and Deutsche Bank acting as joint lead managers on the transaction.

In January Kensington Mortgages secured almost £1bn in funding, covering residential mortgage lending and originations until 2021.