Santander UK saw its gross mortgage lending almost double to £5.8bn in the first three months of the year compared to a year ago.

The UK arm of the Spanish lender said this business jumped 87% in the quarter to the end of March “driven by higher yields in mortgages,” in a stock market release.

Its home loan book is unchanged from the previous three months at £167.2bn, although new business average loan sizes rose to £256,000 from £246,000 over the period. Landlord lending remains unchanged at 9% of its portfolio.

Santander UK chief executive Mike Regnier said: “We carried good momentum from 2024 into the first quarter of 2025 as we continued to make progress on our strategic priorities.

“As part of this, we evolved our products and services to meet our customers’ changing behaviours and needs, including becoming the first major lender to change our assessments of how much customers can afford to pay towards a mortgage, allowing them to borrow more.”

Last month, Santander became the first large UK lender to home loan relax stress testing in line with recommendations from the Financial Conduct Authority, who had previously said lenders were being “too cautious” with first-time buyer applications.

Santander said its changes allow customers to borrow between £10,000 and £35,000 more.

Lloyds Banking Group, which owns Halifax, and NatWest have also relaxed their affordability tests.