LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Nationwide Building Society
Nationwide, Britain's second-biggest mortgage provider, boosted lending to homeowners by 11 percent to 26.2 billion pounds ($32.8 billion) in the nine months to Dec. 31 thanks to rising deposits from its savers.
However, the net interest margin, which reflects the gap between what the society pays savers and what it charges borrowers, declined to 1.33 percent from 1.56 percent in the same period a year earlier and Nationwide said it expects low rates to continue to squeeze margins.
In a further sign of the worsening outlook for the British economy, Nationwide said it booked 111 million pounds of provisions against losses on loans for the nine months, up from 9 million pounds in the same period the previous year.
($1 = 0.7996 pounds)