With a strong financial and funding position, it is expected that this will contribute to a strong year for the mortgage business at The Co-operative Bank.
The latest figures also show that there has been a 13% increase in the proportion of customers who are remortgaging, which indicates that an increasing number of people are looking to take advantage of the lower mortgage rates available at the moment.
Neville Richardson, Chief Executive of The Co-operative Financial Services comments:
"Our significant rise in mortgage applications has largely occurred over the past couple of months and in part reflects the range of best-buy mortgage applications we've been able to maintain over the period.
"Throughout the credit crisis our strong financial position and responsible lending approach has attracted more and more customers to us and is an approach we will continue to build on.
Since the start of the year The Co-operative Bank and Britannia have launched a range of best buy products, with over 850 best buy mentions throughout the national media.
There have also been a number of innovative new product launches. These have included a five year capped tracker product, allowing customers to take advantage of the low interest rate environment, with the security of protection against future interest rate rises.
There has also been a mix and match proposition, allowing customers to mix and match their mortgage deals for only one single application fee. The Co-operative Bank and Britannia also led the way with the return to 90% lending earlier this year, also offering a range of options to help support first time buyers.
Neville Richardson continues:
"The large increase in mortgage applications reflects some gentle improvement in consumer confidence with regards to the housing market, which recent CML figures would seem to support.
"Additionally we are seeing similar growth figures in core banking and insurance areas and it is clear that increasing numbers of people want to be with a business that they trust and in our case - a business they can have a say in."
