Mortgages -
First Direct Resumes Sales of Mortgages - 20/05/2008
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HSBC’s First Direct has started selling mortgages to new customers again, two weeks after temporarily stopping it.
Following mortgage drought the bank stopped offering the deals on April 1 as it was flooded by new applicants.
It was the first bank to withdraw its entire mortgage range to avoid being swamped by new business.
Now it is resuming sales because it said it could handle new applications after clearing its backlog.
Chief executive of First Direct, Chris Pilling said his staff had completed processing a year’s worth of applications in just three months.
He said they took the bold decision to withdraw from mortgage sales to non-customers so as to be able to deal with the huge applications they had received. “We’ve now assessed all the loan applications outstanding from 1 April and earlier and let everyone know the outcome,” he explained.
However, after the introduction of its Rate Matcher offer First Direct’s parent group, HSBC, has in recent times clinched a big share of the market for new mortgages.
The deal was introduced to target people trying to switch their loans from other lenders, especially those whose fixed rate mortgages were coming to an end and feared they could not refinance them.
The offer, which was to match their expiring fixed rates, has attracted four times the number of enquiries it would ordinarily receive, said the bank. And the deal has been extended to the end of June.
Meanwhile, the Halifax has cut interest rates on some of its mortgage deals making it the latest big lender to do so.
From tomorrow it will reduce some offers by 0.15 per cent for only existing borrowers seeking to re-mortgage.
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