The range will relaunch on June 14
Santander for Intermediaries announced on Monday that it is temporarily withdrawing certain mortgage products from the market.
“Due to current market conditions, we’re temporarily withdrawing all our new business residential and buy-to-let fixed and tracker rates at 7:30pm on Monday, June 12,” the lender said. “We’re relaunching our full new business range on Wednesday, June 14.”
Santander advised brokers to submit full mortgage applications for new business products in its latest rate bulletin as soon as possible. Those who submit after the 7:30pm deadline, the lender said, would receive a message for them to select a new product when the new range is launched on Wednesday.
The bank clarified that its product transfer range would still be available.
The Santander announcement came in the midst of broker appeals for a minimum notice period of 24 hours on product withdrawals by lenders. Since the end of May, a number of lenders have withdrawn products as a result of increased swap rates. Some of them have already returned to the market with repriced offers.
“What started with smaller lenders dramatically pulling out of the market has now spread to much larger lenders with Nationwide, HSBC and most recently, Santander announcing short-notice withdrawals,” Rob Gill, managing director at Altura Mortgage Finance, said.
“While there are some tentative signs that market turmoil is settling, lenders are still working to manage volumes and recover from some very challenging market conditions over recent weeks.”
Graham Cox, founder of SelfEmployedMortgageHub.com, added that gilt yields and swap rates, which determine the cost of borrowing for lenders in the money markets, continue to climb in the wake of the disastrous inflation figures announced last month.
“The result is lenders are finding it increasingly difficult to price fixed-rate deals profitability,” Cox stated. “In addition, any bank or building society that comes out cheapest is getting flooded with too many applications to cope, which is no doubt what’s happening with Santander.”
Santander’s product withdrawal expected
“Santander was the only lender remaining that hadn’t repriced, so this was expected,” Katy Eatenton, mortgage and protection specialist at Lifetime Wealth Management, commented. “Hopefully, their systems will be able to cope with the massive influx of applications they will receive today.”
Michelle Lawson, director at Lawson Financial, said she, too, was not surprised by the product withdrawal announcement from Santander.
“I fully expected this on Friday,” she added. “Kudos to Santander for giving notice, but I would still prefer 24 hours’ notice as per our campaign for the #24hrpledge, as this would have been known on Friday and even before then perhaps. As products are not going to be launched until Wednesday, hopefully, Santander will reprice for the longer term.”
Justin Moy, managing director at EHF Mortgages, said Santander is probably the last lender to increase rates in the latest batch of changes, “so this was not unexpected.”
“They have given us a reasonable amount of notice compared to some lenders, although still not 24 hours,” he stated.
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