UK lender B&B says margins steady amid turmoil
April 2nd, 2008 | by admin |LONDON, April 2 (Reuters) - British specialty lenderBradford & Bingley (BB.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said it had seen a “very strong” startto the year in attracting retail deposits and its mortgagemargins had held up during the recent financial market turmoil.
“We are happy with the way our chosen specialist markets areperforming and we’ve been able to maintain our mortgage marginsduring the recent financial turmoil,” B&B Finance Director ChrisWillford said on Wednesday.
B&B shares have been hit hard by concerns it faces higherfunding costs and its main areas of specialty — buy-to-let and”self-cert” mortgages — are facing a sharp slowdown.self-certificated loans are aimed at self-employed people orworkers with irregular income.
“We are confident they (specialist markets) will continue togrow ahead of the mainstream market,” Willford said in a speechat a Morgan Stanley banking conference.
The withdrawal of other lenders had helped it protectmargins by increasing prices, which had not dampened theappetite of buy-to-let borrowers, he said.
Willford said the lender had seen “fantastic” growth insavings deposits in 2008, with 1.2 billion pounds ($2.4 billion)raised in the first six weeks of the year.
It funds over half its mortgage loans by retail savings. (Reporting by Steve Slater; Editing by Paul Bolding)
