Lending was down from £14.1bn during the same period last year. The bank also said there was a reduction in the share of new mortgages at 90 per cent loan to value (LTV) and higher which fell from 2.6 per cent of its lending to 0.7 per cent.
It put this down to “credit tightening actions” and the closure of the Help to Buy scheme.
The value of its mortgage balances came to £163.6bn in H1, up from £159.6bn the year before.
The average LTV of its portfolio came to 53 per cent, up from 51 per cent last year, while the average LTV of its newly lent mortgages was 63 per cent, down from 69 per cent.
Profit rise
The UK business reported a pre-tax profit of £1.53bn, up from £1.22bn last year. The bank saw its net interest income rise from £2.73bn to £3.27bn year-on-year in H1, while in Q2 this increased from £1.39bn last year to £1.66bn this year. It attributed this increase to higher interest rates.
In H1, Barclays UK’s net interest margin improved from 2.67 per cent to 3.2 per cent.
The bank increased its credit impairment charges from £48m in H1 2022 to £208m in H1 2023. It said this was driven by UK cards and mortgages, stating that the macroeconomic outlook suggested there would be an improvement in GDP and unemployment amid higher interest rates and weaker house prices.
The arrears rate of its home loans portfolio rose marginally from 0.1 per cent as of December 2022 to 0.2 per cent in the six months to June 2023.
The wider Barclays group posted a pre-tax profit of £4.56bn, up from £3.73bn the year before.
C.S. Venkatakrishnan, group chief executive of Barclays, said: “We have positioned Barclays carefully for this mixed macroeconomic environment and delivered a consistent performance in the second quarter. Through our diverse sources of income, prudent risk management, and ongoing cost discipline we have again demonstrated the stability and strength of the franchise we have built over many years.
“This means we are able to distribute increased capital returns to shareholders, while providing targeted support to our customers and clients. Looking forward, we are very confident of meeting our targets for the full year.”
