The City of London watchdog is to change the regulations on mortgage switching to help thousands of borrowers locked into expensive home loans with closed or inactive lenders.
Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, this week wrote to Nicky Morgan, chair of the Commons Treasury select committee, setting out the regulator’s plans to help 140,000 so-called “mortgage prisoners”.
These are borrowers who have a loan with a firm that has either ceased lending or is unauthorised to make new loans, leaving customers paying standard variable rates of interest that are higher than the fixed or discounted rates available in the mainstream market.
