Loan repayments are going well:British bank

London, Oct 14 (DPA) Britain's nationalised mortgage lender Northern Rock said Tuesday it was 'well ahead' of its government loan repayment target, having paid back more than half of the 26 billion pounds ($45 billion) in emergency loans from the Bank of England.

Government-appointed Northern Rock chief executive Ron Sandler said that as on Sep 30, the sum of 11.4 billion pounds was still outstanding.

Since nationalisation of Britain's fifth-biggest mortgage lender in February, Sandler's strategy involved halving the balance sheet to 50 billion pounds by the end of 2011 by stopping all business lending and accelerating mortgage redemptions for existing customers.

Northern Rock said it had attracted three billion pounds of new retail deposits during the third quarter, taking the total to 17.2 billion pounds as customers flock to banks perceived as 'safe'.

The lender said it advanced 2.4 billion pounds of mortgage lending during the nine months to the end of Sep and 1,500 of 6,500 jobs have been cut.

However, the group's mortgage arrears figures jumped by nearly 60 percent during the last three months, as the number of home repossessions increased.