Almost one million mortgages were approved by the UK’s high street banks during 2019, according to a report published by LearnBonds.com.

Data gathered by the investment service revealed that 2019 saw a 7.4% increase in the total number of mortgages from the year before – rising from 909,597 in 2018, to 982,286 recorded last year.

LearnBonds.com indicated the mortgage approvals it measured for the report included those from loans for home purchase, remortgaging, and also those secured from other loans.

Compared to 2018, the report revealed the number of mortgages approved for home purchases climbed 8% in 2019 – to a figure of 507,789 mortgages, which represented a 24.1% share of all mortgage approvals during the year.

LearnBonds.com found that remortgage approvals in 2019 were 7.9% higher than in 2018, with the data indicating that total remortgages during 2019 hit 367,590 – 30.6% of the total approvals.

Furthermore, approvals for other secured borrowing reached 106,907 in 2019, according to the data, which was 3% higher than the year before, and represented the remaining 23.5% of the total mortgage approvals recorded during 2019.

The data further indicated that gross mortgage lending across the property market in December 2019 was £22.2bn – which brought the annual total for 2019 to £265.8bn – a figure that was 1.1% lower than in 2018 for the full market.

Within this figure, LearnBonds.com learned the high street banks’ lending was £172.1bn – which was 21.9% higher than in 2018 – showing that cumulatively lending reached £437.91bn across 2019.

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