- Lowest number of Mortgage Approvals since records began.
- In a breaking report from the Bank of England only 64,000 mortgages were approved last month.
- Tue 29th Apr 2008
- Are the Banks getting greedy?
- In a test case in the High Court today, 8 UK Banks may be deemed to have be charging their customers unfairly.
- Thu 24th Apr 2008
- Comparison websites under the hot spotlight.
- The centre for competition policy has produced a report saying independent checks need to be made of comparison websites.
- Sat 12th Apr 2008
Rate hold 'not bad news for borrowers'
Fri 11 Jan 2008 4pm
The Bank of England's decision to hold interest rates at 5.5 per cent yesterday is not necessarily bad news for the nation's borrowers, it has been claimed.While mortgage holders may be disappointed by the Bank's failure to reduce the cost of borrowing for another month at least, it is not all "doom and gloom" for consumers, according to Leeds Building Society.
Public relations manager at the building society Gary Brook explained that because many UK homeowners have fixed-rate mortgage deals, a reduction would have had no impact anyway.
He added: "New borrowers and those remortgaging are already benefiting from cheaper fixed-rate mortgage products as swap rates, which are currently around 0.55 per cent lower than this time last year, have already factored in potential decreases in base rate.
According to Mr Brook, these lower swap rates should mean a minimal "payment shock" for people coming to an end of their fixed-rate deal.
Several analysts have predicted that that the Bank will opt to cut rates at next month's monetary policy committee meeting, which takes place on February 7th.
