In a recent announcement, Barclays has released details in its new loyalty mortgage programme, designed to offer attractive rates to current Barclays customers. In doing so, the UK banking institution follows the lead set by Santander, Halifax, and Co-op/Britannia, who have all offered similar deals in the past.
The loyalty mortgage programme is designed in such a way that customers who have current accounts with Barclays will be eligible for either fixed rate, tracker, or offset mortgages with up to a 0.54 per cent reduction to their interest rates. When these specialised rates go into effect, any current account opened through Barclay, which include their Graduate, Additions, and Premier account lines, will be considered as satisfying the eligibility requirement for customers to take advantage of the new deal.
Barclays mortgage head Andy Gray declared that the bank was rewarding its customers for their loyalty, saying that the rates will act as a supplement to the already highly competitive deals Barclays currently offers to both its new customers and its existing ones.
David Hollingworth, a representative of London & Country Mortgages, a mortgage broker that specialises in no-fee mortgages, commented on the rising incidences of loyalty deals being implemented by lending institutions. Mr Hollingworth said that the Barclays deal is an attractive one, due to the fact that the requirements to maintain the deal include crediting a minimum of £800 a month to the qualifying current account, whereas some loyalty deals offered by other banks can require as much as £1,000 deposited monthly.
The loyalty mortgage deal put in place by Spanish-based Santander requires a fee of £495 in addition to having a valid current account for over six years with the aforementioned £1,000 monthly credit requirement.
The Co-op/Britannia’s deal has similar requirements, including a current account that has been held for a minimum of sixty days with the account holder’s salary on direct deposit into it.