One man's poisonis another's meat
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Ignoring the fact that it seems to irritate the hell out of borrowers at the receiving end of these deals, the growing propensity of lenders to sell mortgages to one another is probably a healthy development. Centralised lending of the type offered by UCB Home Loans is a creature of the 1980s housing boom. Every bad risk turned down by Abbey National went down the road to the nearest centralised lender.
Typically the centralised lenders were foreign-owned. Now in the mid- 1990s most of their owners have problems of their own; with the UK housing market as dead as a dodo, they want out. Societe Bancaire, which launched UCB and is now selling to Nationwide, is a typical example.
One man's poison is usually another's meat, however. In a market crying out for consolidation, Nationwide has already bought a number of other centralised mortgage books in the past year - from Allied Dunbar, Providence Capitol, Lehman Brothers and Hermes from Denmark's Unibak. Abbey National bought HMC last year and Halifax bought BNP.With the pool of available centralised lenders shrinking rapidly, this happy way of painlessly growing the business for those wholly committed to the UK mortgage market is disappearing fast.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments