Feb 6 Reuters British challenger bank Virgin Money UK retained its annual profit margin forecast on Tuesday and said it had seen improvement in the mortgage market activity, with application volumes closer to prepandemic levels last month.

Balances in mortgage, its biggest business, dropped about 0.7 in the first quarter ended Dec. 31 to 57.11 billion pounds 71.68 billion.

However, the company said it had seen early signs that market activity had improved and were increasing back to 2019 levels, amid a fall in mortgage rates.

There are early signs in January that market activity has improved, including market applications volumes more in line with 2019 levels within both residential lending and more recently buytolet, Virgin Money said in a statement.

Looking ahead, the group expects customer sentiment in mortgages to continue to improve, given the emergence of more positive trends at lower customer rates.

The company also stuck by its fullyear net interest margin NIM forecast of 1.901.95.

1 0.7967 pounds

Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich

Source Reuters