Borrowers with any lender who are looking to remortgage are invited to take the challenge, and if Nationwide cannot match or lower new monthly mortgage payments from Halifax, Abbey, Cheltenham & Gloucester, Northern Rock, Woolwich, HSBC or Natwest, with either a better fixed or tracker rate deal, Nationwide will pay out £150.
Winners in the mortgage price war include:
* those who reach the end of one deal and switch to another (changing lenders if the best deals are reserved for new customers only)
* those who are currently on a Standard Variable Rate (SVR) and move onto a better deal
* those who are currently on a high SVR and move onto a better standard rate, like Nationwide's BMR.
Nationwide estimates that a Halifax customer with a typical mortgage of £100,000, currently paying its SVR of 6.50 per cent would save over £1,500 a year by moving to Nationwide's two year fixed rate mortgage at 4.39 per cent.
Losers in the mortgage price war include:
* the thousands of borrowers who have come to the end of a mortgage deal and stay on a high SVR
* the hundreds of thousands of borrowers already paying a high SVR who do nothing.
For example, borrowers with a £100,000 mortgage could save more than £11,000 over the lifetime of their mortgage, or about £450 a year by switching from a 6.50 per cent SVR to Nationwide's 5.89 per cent Base Mortgage Rate.
Unlike other lenders' challenges, Nationwide's mortgage challenge is open to all remortgagers - those coming to the end of a deal as well as those on SVR. It challenges seven named lenders to offer borrowers a better deal than Nationwide.
Nationwide executive director, Stuart Bernau, said: "In a mortgage price war, the winners are those who look for a competitive rate with low fees and charges and a lender who treats them fairly at the end of the deal - with Nationwide, you don't have to sacrifice one for the other. The losers are the borrowers who continue to pay over the odds by remaining on some lenders' uncompetitive standard variable rates.
"With savings of up to £1,500 a year to be made on a £100,000 mortgage, we're confident our new mortgage challenge will lead many people to look at their mortgage and do something about it."
