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Santander for Intermediaries rate reductions

ended 20. March 2023

Santander for Intermediaries this morning announced that, from Tuesday 21 March, “we’re making improvements to rates across our residential ranges. Most new business fixed rates will reduce by up to 0.28% and selected tracker rates by up to 0.34%. We're launching a new 5-year purchase fixed rate at 3.99%, 60% LTV with a £999 fee. This is our lowest on-sale fixed rate along with the current remortgage version. At the same time, the 60% LTV 5-year fixed rate with no fee will be withdrawn. For product transfers, selected residential fixed rates will reduce by up to 0.11%. There’s no change to any Buy to Let rates.” Free PR platform, Newspage, asked brokers for their thoughts.

7 responses from the Newspage community

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Justin Moy
Managing Director at EHF Mortgages
Putting us back to the interest rates we saw at the end of February, Santander is the first of a number of lenders who will adjust their rates this week, with Halifax making a start last week. Most of us will have eyes on the Bank of England for their base rate analysis later this week, which will be the headline stealer for the week.
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Imran Hussain
Director at Harmony Financial Services
I hope this is the start of a move in a positive direction from other lenders but I think a lot will also depend on the markets and what the Bank of England does with the base rate this week.
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Graham Cox
Director at Bridging Hub
Uk swap rates, which lenders' fixed-rated deals are based on, have been falling for a week or two now. And they continue to fall this morning as the expectation is, given the current market conditions, central banks will apply the brakes on base rate rises. This is excellent news for mortgage borrowers.
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Gareth Davies
Director at South Coast Mortgage Services
This is good news to see on a Monday morning and hopefully more will follow. I'd say it's rare for Santander to source top for too long, so maybe they'll either whip these away pronto or perhaps some other major lenders can make more cuts this week, too. The reductions in swap rates in the past seven days mean that there is a good possibility of more reductions in the short term.
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James Vince
Managing Director at Castle View Finance
It's great to see another High Street lender offering a sub-4% rate. This will suit those that have chosen to wait it out on an SVR or Tracker to make the switch to a reasonable 5-year product with a fair product fee.
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Scott Taylor-Barr
Principal Adviser at Barnsdale Financial Management
We have seen several lenders increasing rates, albeit by small amounts, over the previous week or so, now we could well see many of those increases reversed in the coming week, depending on how the current banking wobble pans out. From a borrower's point of view it can feel very daunting with all these rate changes. But what can seem a relatively large move as a percentage can be less intimidating when worked out into the actual pounds and pence change on your own mortgage. It's also worth remembering that you are buying a home, yours or someone else's, so don't get too caught up in interest rates, think about the other, more controllable, aspects: fixed rate or not, shorter or longer term deal, what repayment term, what are the fees?
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Matthew Jackson
Director at Mint FS
Hopefully this will be the start of seeing more and more lenders offering sub-4% fixed rates. I suspect that it is more and more likely that the Bank of England base rate will be held this month, and this will kick off some aggressive pricing from lenders. Good news for mortgage customers at last.