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The Bank of England said mortgage approvals for
house purchase fell to 61,267 in September, down from 64,054 in
August -- a bigger fall than economists had forecast though
similar to the decline reported last week by the British
Bankers' Association.
Earlier this year BoE Governor Mark Carney said a rapid build-up
in household debt linked to rising house prices posed the
greatest domestic threat to sustainable economic recovery in
Britain.
Earlier this year house prices were up more than 10 percent
across Britain as a whole, and by more than 20 percent in
London, though price rises have recently started to cool, and
mortgage approvals never came close to pre-crisis peaks.
Regulators required lenders to make more detailed checks on
borrowers from late April onwards, and since then the Bank of
England has limited the proportion of mortgages that banks can
issue at high multiples of a borrower's income.
The BoE said net mortgage lending -- which lags trends in
approvals -- rose by 1.8 billion pounds ($2.9 billion) in
September, down from growth of 2.2 billion pounds in August and
less than economists had forecast.
Unsecured consumer lending rose by 915 million pounds, slightly
more than expected.
Further pressure on mortgage lending is likely to come on
Friday, when the BoE is due to publish its recommendation on new
leverage ratios for lenders - caps on how much they can lend
relative to their capital
Lending to businesses reversed August's modest gains, dropping
by 710 million pounds, and is now 3.1 percent lower than a year
earlier. The decline in net lending to smaller businesses was
slightly less steep, and is now 2.2 percent below last year's
levels.
(Reporting by David Milliken and Ahmed Aboulenein)
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