Mortgage lending by major British banks slowed in July, figures from the British Bankers' Association (BBA) showed.
Lending rose by just £5.4 billion sterling, down from the initial estimate of £5.7 billion made last week. The July increase was also slower than the recent monthly average of £5.8 billion and £6.7 billion in June.
Significantly, new mortgage approvals also moderated, falling 9.9 per cent from June to £16.4 billion. Compared with the same month a year ago, the drop was by a steep 19.5 per cent. The number of approvals fell some 20 per cent from the previous month and from a year ago.
Taken together, the new evidence of a slowing housing market will help to ease the pressure on the Bank of England from increasing interest rates further.
The central bank raised interest rates five times since November and is still expected to do so again in November to take the benchmark repo rate to 5 per cent.
Personal lending rose £0.7 billion while credit card borrowing rose a strong £0.5 billion. However, demand for personal loans was at its lowest all year, showing a rise of just £0.2 billion.
The BBA monthly lending survey covers data from nine major British banks.