British mortgage bank Northern Rock lent a record £7.8 billion sterling in the first half of the year and posted a 22 per cent rise in pre-tax profits today in line with market expectations.
Despite warning that it expects British house price growth to slow over the next year, the bank increased its interim dividend by 15.4 per cent to 7.5p.
The bank, one of the smallest but also the most efficient of British lenders, posted pre-tax profits of £186.2 million on a 34.4 per cent surge in gross lending, giving it 9.3 per cent of the British mortgage market.
Northern Rock said customers took advantage of the lowest interest rates for a generation to remortgage in the first half, driving the growth in lending.