Vida Group Holdings increased gross mortgage lending to £840m during the first half of 2026, up from £348m in the same time last year.
Mortgage assets surpassed £3bn as the specialist lender continued expanding its balance sheet and increasing its use of retail deposits.
Deposits rose from £1.3bn at 30 June 2025 to £3.4bn a year later, while wholesale funding liabilities reduced from £1.16bn to £648m.
Vida reported a pre-tax profit of £4.8m for the period, marking its fifth consecutive year of statutory profitability.
FUNDING MIX LIFTS MARGIN
The Group’s net interest margin improved from 2.13% to 2.34%, reflecting the shift towards retail deposit funding.
Vida said the comparison with the first half of 2025 was affected by a significant one-off gain generated by a portfolio transaction last year. Excluding that item, it said the underlying business had strengthened through lending growth, improved margins and continued investment.
Its liquidity coverage ratio stood at 145%, compared with 163% at the end of 2025, remaining above the regulatory minimum.
The total capital ratio reduced from 18.3% to 16%, while the common equity tier one ratio moved from 15.2% to 13.4%.
ARREARS EDGE LOWER
The proportion of loans more than 90 days in arrears fell from 2% at the end of 2025 to 1.7%.
Provisions represented 0.28% of lending, compared with 0.31% six months earlier.
Vida said demand within the specialist mortgage market remained healthy and expected to continue gaining market share through its underwriting, service and technology proposition.
AI INVESTMENT ACCELERATES
The bank continued investing in automation, data science and artificial intelligence designed to support underwriting and improve the broker experience.
Anthony Mooney (main picture, inset), CEO at Vida, said: “We have built significant scale, strengthened our funding model and continued to improve the underlying economics of the business.
“Our ambition has never simply been to build a growing mortgage lender. It is to build the UK’s most intelligent specialist mortgage bank.”
He added: “Artificial intelligence is not a standalone initiative for Vida. It is another powerful capability that is being embedded into every stage of our operating model to augment expert judgement, improve consistency and unlock scalable growth.”
