16Oct
Lenders announce rate cuts
Two more lenders have announced that they are cutting their
mortgage rates following the Bank of England's decision to lower
the base rate from five per cent to 4.5 per cent last week.
Nationwide said that in addition to its existing tracker mortgage
customers automatically getting the 0.5 per cent cut passed on to
their deals, from November 1st its Base Mortgage Rate product will
be trimmed by 0.3 per cent from 6.49 per cent to 6.19 per
cent.
Divisional director for mortgages at the lender Matthew Carter
said: "We continue to offer help for first-time buyers and existing
customers by giving them access to competitive low fee
products."
Meanwhile, the Co-operative bank said it was passing on the cut in
full from November 1st.
The prospects for those with tracker mortgages to see their
payments fall further may have been boosted by the expectation that
inflation will soon be falling fast, which would give scope to the
Bank of England's monetary policy committee (MPC) to cut the base
rate again.
Speaking earlier this week, MPC member Andrew Sentance said the
consumer prices index rate may even end up undershooting the
inflation target.
