Last checked at 
LONDON, April 25 (Reuters) - Britain's banks approved thelowest number of mortgages since November last month ahead ofthe imposition of tougher credit checks, though numbers arestill up very strongly from a year ago, industry data showed onFriday.
The British Bankers' Association said its members approved45,933 mortgages in March, down from 47,196 in February thoughmore than 40 percent up on March 2013. BBA data does not includelending by major mutually owned lenders such as Nationwide.
Tighter rules on mortgage lending take effect on Saturday,Banks will have to check more closely that borrowers will beable to afford loan repayments when interest rates go up. Somelenders have already started to apply the changes.
Economists polled by Reuters last month on average expectedinterest rates to rise from their record low of 0.5 percent inthe second quarter of next year, though since then financialmarkets have priced in a move as soon as March 2015.
The BBA also said that lending for overdrafts and personalloans had grown for the first time since January 2009 and was up0.5 percent on the year.
"Consumer confidence is clearly picking up as more peopleseek to borrow from their bank to fund new purchases," said BBAchief economist Richard Woolhouse.
However lending to businesses was still down, dropping by4.4 percent on the year, the steepest decline since November.Business lending has been falling continuously since July 2009.
BBA data is usually a good leading indicator for trends inthe Bank of England's monthly lending statistics, which are dueon May 1.
* For a table of the BBA data, see (Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Alison Williams)
