The savings specialist has entered the mortgage market with two products and is offering a fixed rate and a flexible rate.
The products have been developed following feedback from more than 70,000 ING Direct customers. Primarily the marketing activity will be targeted at its one million strong customer base, but ING Direct has admitted it has also begun consulting on how best to work with intermediaries.
The ING Direct flexible mortgage has been launched with a variable rate of 5.14 per cent (5.3 per cent APR) which is plus 0.39 per cent above the Bank of England Base Rate (BBR) and promises to always be less than 0.9 per cent above the BBR. The fixed mortgage has a rate of 4.95 per cent (5.3 per cent APR) for two years and then changes to flexible rate for the remaining term. The flexible rate has no fees, while the fixed has an arrangement fee of £495.
Lindsay Sinclair, chief executive officer at ING Direct, said: “Mortgage lenders are constantly jostling to be top of the ‘best-buy’ tables and use all sorts of fees and catches in order to push themselves forward. ING Direct will bring the same clarity and simplicity to the mortgage market as we did to savings. We are working with intermediaries and we are investigating the best way to work with this channel before taking this next logical step.”
Commenting, Rob Clifford, managing director of mortgageforce, said: “I think lenders should ignore the intermediary market at their peril as it makes up a massive share of overall mortgage sales. While ING Direct’s rates could be a bit more sensibly priced, I think its stance as consumer champion is very admirable and its decision to not charge fees is unusual compared to other players in the market.”
