British house mortgage lending rises 12 pct in August

British mortgage lending to house buyers rose by 12 percent in August from July, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said on Friday. The number of new loans granted reached 55,300, up by 11 percent compared to the same period last year, amounting to 8.4 billion pounds (13.5 billion U.S. dollars), according to the CML. It is the largest number of loans seen since the summer of 2010. "House purchase lending showed an encouraging rise in August but it's unclear whether this reflects just the unravelling of previous factors such as the Jubilee and the Olympic Games, or a shift in the underlying picture," said CML Director-General Paul Smee. Smee said they would wait and see whether the government-supported schemes such as Funding for Lending and NewBuy provide a further boost to the market in coming months. But the country's remortgage lending continued its downward trend, accounting for just 22 percent of gross lending in August, compared to 33 percent in August last year, according to the CML data. Remortgage lending totaled 2.9 billion pounds (4.7 billion dollars) in August, down by almost 33 percent year on year and by over 9 percent month on month.