THE IRISH Nationwide Building Society is preparing to launch a range of home loans, putting into effect its plans to move away from commercial lending in favour of growing its residential mortgage business.

Among the products being developed is a number of high loan-to-value mortgages for first-time buyers to grow its share of this market, as the building society attempts to concentrate on expanding the home loan side of its business.

The building society is also planning to recruit a new head of commercial lending for Ireland and Britain in the coming weeks.

The executive, who is expected to be appointed in the coming weeks, will play a key role in liaising with the Government’s toxic loans agency, Nama, which is estimated to acquire up to 75 per cent of the society’s €10 billion loan book.

The building society grew its commercial loan book aggressively during the property boom, particularly in lending to developers.

About 80 per cent of Irish Nationwide’s €10 billion loan book relates to commercial property, with just €2 billion outstanding from residential mortgage borrowers.

Irish Nationwide’s new mortgage products are currently being developed. A staff meeting has been scheduled for later this week at which employees are expected to be briefed on the products, although sources close to the building society said that the launch of the new loans was not imminent.

A spokesman for Irish Nationwide declined to comment when contacted yesterday evening.

Irish Nationwide chairman Danny Kitchen told members at the annual meeting last May that the building society planned to reduce commercial property loans to about 50 per cent of its overall loan book by 2013, and that the lender would try to “prudently expand its home mortgage business”.

The building society this week sold an additional €500 million of Government-guaranteed bonds, bringing to €1.75 billion the amount Irish Nationwide has raised using the support of the State bank guarantee, which expires in 13 months’ time.