Posts Tagged ‘Yorkshire BS’

Barnsley BS to merge with Yorkshire

Sunday, October 26th, 2008

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Yorkshire Building Society is to take over its smaller peer Barnsley Building Society after Barnsley revealed a possible £10 million writedown from its exposure to two Icelandic banks, Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander and Heritable.

The merger of Yorkshire, the UK’s third largest building society, and Barnsley is the latest of a wave of consolidation as smaller players turn to their larger peers for help against the backdrop of financial turbulence. Nationwide, the UK’s largest building society, announced its plans to merge with The Derbyshire and The Cheshire Building Societies last month, while earlier this month Britannia Building Society said it is in exploratory talks with the Co-Operative Bank.

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Northern Rock offers first decent mortgage rate

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

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Northern rock has issued its first competitive mortgage rates since a run on the bank almost brought it to its knees last summer.  It has two-year fixed-rate loans that, while not the very best on the market, are good enough to bring in new customers. For buyers there is a rate of 6.39% and for remortgagers a rate of 6.49%.  Both have a £995 fee.  The lowest rates for two-year fixed deals are available from First Direct and Yorkshire BS.

Northern Rock has been trying to move existing customers to rivals since last September.  Its rates have got progressively more expensive as it tried to price itself out of the market to avoid taking on new business.  These new rates are not available for existing customers.  While these rates are not the very best, where they have a big advantage is that they are fully flexible, meaning you can overpay as much as you like without penalty.

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Posted in Banking, Credit crunch, Finance, Government, Mortgages, Northern rock, Re-mortgage | No Comments »