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LONDON (Reuters) – British lenders increased their mortgage lending last month after the scaling back of a tax break for homebuyers at the end of June led to a rare net repayment by borrowers in July, Bank of England data showed on Wednesday.
Net mortgage lending increased by 5.293 billion pounds ($7.24 billion) in August while new mortgage approvals fell very slightly to 74,453, the BoE said.
A Reuters poll of economists had pointed to a net rise of 3.7 billion pounds in mortgage borrowing in August and to 73,000 mortgage approvals during the month.
($1 = 0.7311 pounds)
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(Reporting by William Schomberg; editing by David Milliken)
