The data points to a pickup in lending activity across both household and corporate sectors from a year earlier. However, the annual growth rate for net mortgage lending decreased to 3.0% in March, from 3.4% in February, indicating that headline flows can run ahead of the underlying year-on-year trend.

The approvals data corroborates the broader picture. Net mortgage approvals for house purchases increased to 63,500 in March from 62,700 in February. Approvals for remortgaging increased to 51,300 in March, from 41,200 in February.

The remortgaging jump of just over 10,000 approvals in a single month may reflect borrowers acting on rate expectations or fixed-rate maturities coming through in volume.

Consumer credit behaviour was more measured. Net borrowing of consumer credit by individuals slightly decreased to £1.9bn in March from £2.0bn in February, with credit card borrowing flat at £0.7bn. The relative stability hints at cautious household behaviour even as mortgage activity accelerates, a divergence that may interest those modelling consumer resilience or impairment trajectories.

Corporate borrowing told a more dramatic story. Private non-financial corporations borrowed, on net, £3.6bn of finance in March, following net borrowing of £2.9bn in February. Within total net finance raised, bank loans amounted to £9.9bn of net borrowing in March, following £4.3bn of net borrowing in February.

The fact that bank loans alone substantially exceeded the headline net finance figure indicates that corporates were repaying other forms of finance while leaning more heavily on bank facilities, a rotation in funding mix worth monitoring.

Money supply data reinforced the impression of a more active month. The net flow of sterling money (known as M4ex) increased to £22.1bn in March, from £14.2bn in February, with households depositing £4.4bn into ISAs and £3.0bn into interest-bearing sight deposit accounts.

The ISA inflow reflects familiar end-of-tax-year behaviour, while the parallel build-up of interest-bearing sight deposits suggests households continue to favour liquid, yield-bearing options.

Taken together, the March release suggests UK credit conditions were used more actively in ways that should feed through into the wider economy.

Whether the trend persists into April and May data, particularly as remortgaging volumes settle, will be the key question for practitioners watching the second-quarter picture take shape.