Barclays is writing nearly three times as many 95% mortgages as last year
Key Points
- Lending above 90% loan to value made up 4.4% of Barclays' new UK home loans in the first half of 2026, against 1.6% a year earlier.
- New home loan bookings rose 14.3% to £17.7bn, putting high-LTV lending at roughly £780m.
- The average LTV on new lending edged up to 70.2% on a balance weighted basis.
- Balances above 90% LTV now account for 2.1% of the portfolio, up from 1.7% at December 2025.
- Arrears and charge-off rates across the mortgage book were unchanged.
Barclays wrote 4.4% of its new UK home loans above 90% loan to value in the first half of 2026, against 1.6% in the same period last year.
The bank disclosed the shift in its interim results for the six months ended 30 June, which show new home loan bookings rising 14.3% to £17.6 billion from £15.4 billion.
At those proportions, lending above 90% LTV accounted for roughly £780 million of the total, compared with around £250 million a year earlier.
Barclays attributes the increase in bookings to taking a larger share of a larger mortgage market, and says demand for lending above 90% LTV rose within its established risk appetite.
The average loan to value on new lending moved up alongside the volumes. On a balance weighted basis it reached 70.2%, from 69.5% in the first half of 2025, and on a valuation weighted basis it reached 62.2% from 60.7%.
What it does to the book
Gross loans and advances in the UK home loans portfolio grew to £176 billion from £172 billion at December 2025, with UK mortgage balances of £176.7 billion against £166.8 billion a year earlier.
The average marked to market loan to value across the portfolio rose to 56.5% from 55.2%, and to 42.7% from 41.5% on a valuation weighted basis.
Barclays reports that the UK home loan portfolio consists primarily of first lien mortgages and accounts for 97% of the group’s total home loans balance.
Arrears held steady. The 90 day arrears rate excluding the recovery book stayed at 0.1%, and the annualised gross charge-off rate at 180 days past due stayed at 0.5%.
The recovery book fell to 0.5% of outstanding balances from 0.6%, with an impairment coverage ratio of 4.3%. Total impairment allowance against retail mortgages stands at £127 million on £181.7 billion of gross exposure, a coverage ratio of 0.1%.
Loans and advances to customers across Barclays UK rose £4.3 billion to £220.8 billion, which Barclays attributes primarily to mortgage growth, partly offset by securitisations.
Barclays’ baseline scenario assumes UK house price growth of 1.3% in 2026 and 1.6% in 2027.
Its most severe downside scenario models falls of 12% and 19.3% across those two years, under which modelled expected credit losses on retail mortgages rise to £294 million from the weighted figure of £81 million.
