Nationwide slapped with £44m fine over prolonged financial crime control failures

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined Nationwide Building Society £44m after finding widespread failings in its anti-financial crime framework over nearly five years. The regulator said the shortcomings, which spanned from October 2016 to July 2021, left the...

Latest news

MPs launch inquiry into OBR’s first 15 years

The Treasury Committee has launched an inquiry to reflect on the Office for Budget Responsibility’s first 15 years, with a focus on what lessons...

Atom backs investor’s move into commercial property with £3m warehouse loan

Atom bank has completed a £3 million commercial mortgage to support an established residential investor diversifying into the North West commercial market. The funding was...

CHL Mortgages widens upper LTV range with new fixed-rate options

CHL Mortgages for Intermediaries has expanded its upper loan-to-value range with a series of limited edition 75% and 80% LTV fixed-rate products aimed at...

Swansea Building Society expands West Wales leadership remit

Swansea Building Society has promoted Sioned Jones to area manager, West Wales, with effect from 1 January 2026. The move extends Jones’s remit beyond Carmarthenshire,...

Zephyr lifts broker fees and trims rates across buy-to-let range

Zephyr Homeloans has raised procuration fees for intermediaries and cut pricing on its fixed-rate buy-to-let products as competition intensifies across the specialist market. The lender has increased its procuration fee for brokers from 0.5% to 0.7% gross, while reducing...

No acceleration in rental EPC improvements despite policy push

Rightmove’s 2025 Greener Homes Report indicates that the overall energy efficiency of UK homes is still improving, but at a sluggish pace. Although the rental sector continues to outperform the resale market on average efficiency, recent legislative ambitions have...

Roma Finance partners with new refurbishment cost platform

Roma Finance has been named finance partner for the national rollout of the Refurb Calculator, a digital platform offering developers faster and more accurate refurbishment cost estimates. The Refurb Calculator, created by Tony Walker of Help Build in partnership...

Paragon marks decade of SME lending with £3.6bn milestone

Paragon Bank has marked 10 years since its move into SME finance by surpassing £3.6 billion of lending, underscoring how the business has expanded beyond its traditional specialisms to become a significant funder of smaller companies. The milestone follows...

PROFILE

Graham McClelland on Britain’s broken mortgage market

When Graham McClelland, the youthful and quietly intense chief executive of Gen H, arrived at the City of London office of the fast-growing mortgage...

INDUSTRY COMMENT

Younger consumers are ready for protection. So why aren’t we reaching them?

For years, the protection market has assumed that younger adults are less engaged with financial risk planning. Yet the latest findings from Bruised Britain...

The buy-to-let market continues to defy expectations

Perception and reality are often mistaken for one another. That is especially true in the buy-to-let market, where sentiment frequently diverges from what is...

Advisers are missing a clear chance to help clients with survey advice

For years, advisers have often seen surveys as something outside their core work. Some did not know enough about them. Some were unsure how...

Q&As

BUY-TO-LET

Paragon widens streamlined process to HMOs and multi-unit blocks

Paragon Bank has expanded its streamlined buy-to-let mortgage application process to cover houses in...

ColCap UK passes major buy-to-let milestone as lending platform expands

ColCap Financial UK, the parent company of specialist lender Molo, has passed £1 billion...

Zoopla: Rental demand slips as buyers return

Zoopla’s latest Rental Market Report shows the rental sector entering a new phase of...

Investec trims rates as high-net-worth borrowers regain confidence

Investec Bank has cut pricing on fixed and tracker products for both residential and...

Quantum Mortgages cuts rates and expands larger loans criteria

Quantum Mortgages has introduced a series of rate reductions and criteria enhancements across its...

Market Financial Solutions intensifies training push across specialist lending sector

Market Financial Solutions has underlined its commitment to raising educational standards across the specialist...

The Cumberland joins L&G’s Ignite platform to widen broker access

L&G’s Ignite platform has added Cumberland Building Society as a lender partner, expanding broker...

Metro Bank halves minimum buy-to-let loan size to widen access

Metro Bank has cut its minimum buy-to-let loan size from £100,000 to £50,000 as...

MORTGAGE MINGLE PODCAST

NEWSLETTER SIGNUP

FIRST-TIME BUYERS

The Cambridge raises stress limits to widen borrowing capacity

The Cambridge Building Society has moved to strengthen support for residential borrowers by increasing its affordability stress limits, a change it says will allow some customers to borrow as much as £33,000 more than before. The adjustments apply across its full residential mortgage range, offering...

Precise widens access to high LTV lending with new build focus

Precise has announced a series of changes to its residential range as the specialist...

Gen H reduces high LTV rates to bolster first-time buyer activity

Gen H has introduced a series of rate changes across its mortgage range, with...

Early winter slowdown as lender criteria changes hit 2025 high

Knowledge Bank’s November data reveals a quieter month for broker searches set against a...

Zoopla forecasts stronger start to 2026 as market steadies after Budget jitters

The UK housing market is set to enter 2026 with renewed momentum after months...

OPINION

Later life lending and the importance of a lasting power of attorney

It’s fair to say that later life lending has moved from a niche corner of the market into a more mainstream space, as older...

What my Gen Z daughter can teach us about engaging young buyers

Younger people are often badged with some unfair stereotypes when it comes to protection...

How lenders’ new freedoms are undermining client relationships

Can we expect lenders to try and tighten their grip on borrowers at their...

Why brokers are rethinking bridging

The bridging market has continued to strengthen this year. Data from the Bridging and Development Lenders Association shows loan books at record levels, reinforcing how central short-term finance has become in today’s investment landscape. What we are seeing now is a bridging market that plays...

AMI Protection Viewpoint 2025: Reigniting the protection journey

Making protection relevant and keeping customers engaged is a vital part of the advice process. Yet the recent Association of Mortgage Intermediaries’ Protection Viewpoint 2025...

DISTRIBUTION

Chetwood Bank raises maximum exposure limit to £10 million

Chetwood Bank is raising the maximum buy-to-let exposure limit to £10 million for both...

Norton Home Loans added to L&G Mortgage Club lender panel

Norton Home Loans, part of the Norton Financial Services Group, has joined the lender...

MIMHC launches programme to train over 100 Mental Health First Aiders

The Mortgage Industry Mental Health Charter (MIMHC) Foundation has announced its most ambitious programme...

Perenna partners with Primis to widen access to long-term fixes

Perenna has agreed a distribution partnership with Primis Mortgage Network, in a move designed...

Conveybuddy adds Talbots Law to its conveyancing panel

Conveyancing distributor conveybuddy has appointed Talbots Law to its panel, giving advisers access to a new specialist team handling transactional cases. Talbots Law is an employee-owned firm operating across Worcestershire, Shropshire, Cheshire and the West Midlands. The practice helps more than 20,000 people move home...