Mortgage Rates Increased By Certain Lenders On Their SVR Products
More and more lenders are putting up the mortgage rates on their own standard variable rate mortgages, despite the base rate staying at 0.5%. This is despite the fact that traditionally, Lenders apply have always used the base rate as a measure of their own rates. This increase has gone unnoticed by thousands of homeowners [...]
The numbers are just not there to give hope of not going into a double dip recession. House prices are slumping and home loan approvals are practically absent. Also, data from the Bank of England says, lending is about half the level needed for the market to be considered “healthy”.
Executives from the UK’s largest banks have teamed up to help increase lending to small businesses, and help them recover faster. Stephen Green, chairman of the HSBC and the British Banker’s Association, is captain of them team.
Spanish bank Santander is making its presence known on the UK high streets. RBS is close to the sale of 318 of its branches, enabling Santander to overtake HSBC as the overall branch lender in number of branches. There are also rumors of Santander’s British arm to possibly be spun off. Santander has posted a 10 per cent increase in H1 profit.
Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and RBS are all due to report first half earnings for the year this week. Analyst have stated that profits are expected from all banks as they recover from the past financial crisis. British finance minister George Osborne told banks to use the profits to boost business lending rather than pay bonuses to executives.
The New Metro Bank won’t be fighting back a stampede of customers from first glance of the products they are offering.
Chancellor George Osborne and Business Secretary Vince Cable met with banking chief executives to discuss future lending. Once the 90 minute meeting concluded all agreed that lending up to the economic crisis should have been more diversified. Nearly three-quarters of all lending prior to the crisis went to property loans. Now lenders are going to seek to do more for businesses in the UK than they have been.
