HSBC pulls mortgage products for new borrowers ahead of rates hike

Nationwide Building Society is hiking some fixed rates from Friday while HSBC UK has temporarily removed some products before relaunching on Monday

Several mortgage providers have hiked rates over the past week (Alamy/PA)

HSBC has pulled its mortgage deals for new borrowers before it raises rates next week.

The lender advised brokers on Thursday afternoon it had temporarily removed its “new business” residential and buy-to-let products.

All HSBC products and rates for existing customers are still available, the bank said, adding that it continues to review the situation regularly.

“To ensure that we can stay within our operational capacity and meet our customer service commitments, we occasionally need to limit the amount of new business we can take each day,” an HSBC spokesperson said. “Our broker products will be available again on Monday, June 12.”

The move comes as Nationwide Building Society said it would hike some fixed mortgage rates for new borrowing from Friday.

Among Nationwide’s changes, it said two, three and five-year fixed-rate deals for people with a 5% deposit will increase by between 0.01 and 0.20 percentage points, with rates starting from 4.69%.

A Nationwide spokesperson said: “In recent weeks swap rates (which underpin the pricing of fixed-rate mortgages) have continued to rise and lenders across the market have increased rates or withdrawn products.

“We are not immune to this and need to increase our fixed rates to ensure they remain sustainable.”

Financial information website Moneyfacts said it has seen several mortgage providers hiking rates over the past week.

On Thursday, the average two-year-fixed-rate mortgage rate on the market across all deposit brackets was 5.82%, according to Moneyfacts’ figures, up from 5.49% at the start of June.

The average five-year fixed-rate mortgage on the market on Thursday was 5.49%, up from 5.17% on June 1.

Responding to HSBC UK’s announcements on website Newspage, Riz Malik, founder and director at Southend-on-Sea-based R3 Mortgages, said: “I saw the announcement whilst at lunch and it really underscored the turbulent times we’re currently facing in the mortgage market.”

Jamie Lennox, director at Norwich-based Dimora Mortgages, said on the website: “More needs to be done by lenders to give a minimum of 24 hours to brokers to allow reasonable time for consumers to consider their options.”