Nationwide just revealed 2 things that show Britain's economy is booming
The lender said statutory profit before tax was up a huge 34% at £802 million ($1.2 billion).
And within the announcement, Nationwide revealed two key points that show Britain's economic recovery is a lot stronger than people give it credit for.
Firstly, a lot more people are getting on the property ladder. Its half year results show:
- Record half year gross mortgage lending, up 14% at £14.9 billion.
- Helped 25,700 first time buyers in to a home of their own, up 8%.
"We have reinforced our position as the UK's second largest mortgage lender by outperforming our natural par shares of lending. Our gross lending was the highest ever in a half year period ... and our net lending was also up 14% at £4.1 billion ... representing market shares of 13.2% and 21.2% respectively," said Graham Beale, CEO of Nationwide in a statement.
British regulators and the Bank of England formed some pretty stringent policies to make sure that people who want to get a mortgage never takes a loan that is larger than 4.5 times the size of the household's salary. And in addition, even people who take out of a mortgage have to be stress-tested to be able to withstand an interest-rate rise of around 2% higher than current rates.
- Strong savings performance: increased our member deposit balances by £2.6 billion.
- Particularly strong ISA season: 33% of total market change in ISA balances.