Bank of England figures have shown that mortgage approvals dipped slightly in November but were still higher than the year's average. While 65,700 mortgages for house buying were approved, this was a drop from October by about 2,400, yet it was well over the average of 60,400 from the past 12 months. The trend for remortgaging saw a slight downtick too, with approvals falling by 300 to settle at 31,200, but these numbers still outpaced the annual average of 30,000.
The pace of growth for consumer credit borrowing, which includes credit cards, car dealership finance and personal loans, has also slowed in November, demonstrating a shift from 7.3% in October to 6.6%. Breaking down the consumer credit figures further shows credit card borrowing's yearly expansion slackened to 8.0% as opposed to October’s 9.4%, and other consumer credit forms such as car finance and personal loans dropped from 6.3% to 5.9%.
Meanwhile, household deposits in banks and building societies took a modest upturn by £0.2bn in November. This is a stark contrast to the substantial net deposits of £18.8bn seen in October, the largest since the £21.5bn recorded in December 2020. Mark Hicks, head of active savings at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "A post-Budget pause marked the start of a seasonal slowdown in savings.".
Laith Khalaf, head of investment analysis at AJ Bell, commented on the recent financial trends, saying: "Savers had been squirreling away cash ahead of the Budget, and after the announcement didn’t hit quite as hard as they had feared, they took their foot off the savings accelerator.
