A new Dutch-style mortgage lender is set to release fixed-rate mortgages where the rates will automatically reduce as borrowers repay them.
April Mortgages, authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority in October, plans to offer loans to existing homeowners remortgaging and new buyers by the end of March.
The bank is a UK subsidiary of the Dutch asset manager DMFCO, which has made more than 100,000 loans totalling nearly £25billion in the Netherlands since 2014 through its mortgage lending arm, Munt.
As in the Netherlands, the bank plans to fund its loans through investments from pension funds and life and insurance businesses, rather than from savers’ deposits like UK high street banks.
One of its unique selling points is that as homeowners pay off their loans, or if their property has increased in value, April will automatically switch them into a lower loan-to-value band and probably a lower rate. Normally homeowners can only do this when they remortgage.