Nationwide to lend first-time buyers five times their income on long-term mortgage April 20, 2021 First-time buyers with deposits as low as 10 per cent will be able to borrow five and a half times their income when taking out a longer-term mortgage, the UK’s biggest building society said this morning. Nationwide Building Society said that under its “helping hand” initiative, first-time buyers across the UK will have the option [...]
Barclaycard defends decision to cut customers’ credit limits by 95 per cent April 20, 2021 Barclaycard has defended cutting some customers’ credit limits after a backlash from people complaining they had been reduced by over 95 per cent. Some customers complained that their limits had been significantly reduced despite having never missed a payment. It was pointed out that Barclaycard had made the reductions at a time when some people [...]
UK banks launch new low-deposit mortgage scheme April 19, 2021 High street banks will today begin offering mortgages with a deposit of just five per cent under a new government-backed scheme. The scheme, first announced in the Budget, is designed to make home ownership more affordable for first-time buyers. Borrowers will be able to secure a mortgage with just a five per cent deposit on [...]
Halifax: UK house prices near ‘pre-financial crash levels’ April 14, 2021 UK house prices have hit a record high despite rising at a slower rate than a year ago, according to the Halifax house price index this morning. The lender said that the affordability of houses was “close to pre-financial crisis levels”, as house prices remained historically high at an average of £252,765. The difference between [...]
Today final day for borrowers to apply for payment holiday on mortgages, cards and loans March 31, 2021 Borrowers have until the end of today to apply for a payment holiday on products such as mortgages, personal loans and credit cards. Eligible customers who have not taken a payment holiday before, and those who have previously had a payment deferral totalling less than six months, have until tonight to apply. Payment holidays are [...]
The final countdown: Are businesses prepared for the Libor transition? March 31, 2021 The countdown to the end of Libor has begun but the scale of the work involved in transitioning to the new rate is immense. For 40 years Libor has been the key benchmark for setting interest rates on various loans and contracts, underpinning trillions of dollars of transactions, before controversy hit. From today no new [...]
UK house price rises slow down in March as demand softens: Nationwide March 31, 2021 House price growth slowed down this month with prices going up by 5.7 per cent compared to March of last year, mortgage lender Nationwide said this morning. Last month, property prices rose by an annual 6.9 per cent, while house prices edged down by 0.2 per cent month-on-month in March. Across the UK, the average [...]
Stamp duty holiday extension boosts mortgage lending to five-year high but approvals slip March 29, 2021 The stamp duty holiday extension boosted net mortgage borrowing to its highest level since March 2016, according to new Bank of England data. Net mortgage lending hit £6.2bn in February, with mortgage approvals for house purchase reaching 87,700. Andrew Montlake, managing director at mortgage broker Coreco, said the stamp duty extension was pivotal in fuelling [...]
Markets A.M. – Attention shifts to credit data with UK-EU vaccine row set to continue March 29, 2021 US markets once again finished a rather choppy week on a high, with the S&P500 setting another new record, and both the Nasdaq and Russell 200 also posting strong gains in the last hour of trading, in a broad-based uplift across the board. In a week that saw optimism and pessimism in equal measure, stock [...]
Exclusive: Small business owners on what is happening in the real economy March 24, 2021 The City was hit with some sobering figures earlier this month, as official data showed UK GDP shrank by a staggering 9.9 per cent in 2020, the largest drop on record. The figures were less bad than expected, which led PwC to conclude that British businesses are becoming more adaptable to lockdowns from an economic [...]