EuromoneyFXNews.com

EuromoneyFXNews.com

Sign up to receive free alerts from our new foreign exchange news service

FX survey 2012 is now open

Liquid real estate Issue 05

UK mortgage lenders try to shore up funding

by Rachel Wolcott

As the Northern Rock saga rolls on, UK mortgage lenders that had frequented the now-shuttered residential mortgage-backed securities market are seeking to fortify funding lines. Alliance & Leicester, one of the country’s largest lenders, with a £41 billion ($82 billion) prime mortgage portfolio, is one operation that has been identified as perhaps having been too dependent on the RMBS market.


Alliance & Leicester are lining up funding for 2008

To avoid falling victim to the funding crisis that brought about Northern Rock’s downfall, Alliance & Leicester has put in place additional funding facilities, a large proportion of which are backed by its residential mortgage assets. According to Alliance & Leicester’s 2007 results statement released in February, these new facilities have enabled it to fund all its customer loans and advances with customer deposits and wholesale funding with a duration of more than six months. The lender started this process at the end of 2007 and has now pre-funded its maturing medium-term wholesale funding, commercial paper and certificates of deposit into the first quarter of 2009.

This coup comes just in time, as Spain’s Grupo Santander is said to be waiting in the wings to...


The rest of this article is available to subscribers only

Please Subscribe or take a Free Trial below.
Already a subscriber? Log in here.