According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), HBOS has been surpassed by Abbey as the largest supplier of new mortgages in the market in Q2 2008, although HBOS retained its title throughout 2007.

The CML’s statistics found that in 2007 HBOS retained the number one spot for both outstanding mortgage balances and gross mortgage lending with approximately a 20% share of both markets. Unsurprisingly the other major lenders filled out the rest of the top ten, with Nationwide Building Society increasing their market share by the most for gross lending from approximately 7% in 2006 to 9.3% in 2007.

Abbey’s recently released Q2 2008 results showed that the lender is now selling 35% of all new mortgages. With a 15.9% market share in Q1 this puts its half-yearly total share for net lending at 26%. Abbey was closely followed by Lloyds TSB who announced a 24.4% share of the market. HBOS’s market share fell by 15% in H1 2008 to just 9%.

A spokeswoman for Abbey told PIN: “Since September 2006, we have been managing the profitability of our mortgage business, carefully maintaining a balance between the margin of new business, prudent lending criteria and our market share aspirations. We held back our market share during H1 2007 when margins were low or unprofitable. Since then, as others have withdrawn from the market, we have taken the opportunity to take higher-margin, low loan-to-value business and focused on retaining our existing customers .”