As Alliance & Leicester’s mortgages are only available through brokers, the market has received a timely boost. It toppled HSBC, which was the most competitive lender in Q3. A&L received a score of 23 clearly ahead of rivals including First Direct on 1,9 Woolwich on 15 and HSBC on 14 points.
A&L shot to number one despite having not featured in the top ten in the previous three months to September 30 on the back of a strong range of products available only through intermediaries.
There was a return to best-buy status for Northern Rock as well as signs that smaller regional building societies such as Principality and Mansfield are still highly competitive despite the battering the building society sector has taken.
The independent online mortgage service ranked mortgage deals across all product categories. Each time a lender appeared in the top ten in the three months to December 31, they were awarded a point with the lender with the most points ranked as offering consistently good value.
Lloyds Banking Group lenders such as Halifax and Cheltenham & Gloucester did not feature in the Q4 Lender of the Quarter analysis.
Julie Speed, national accounts director at Evaluate Technologies said: “The changes taking place at the top of the best-buy tables indicate a good degree of competition in the mortgage market which is going to be key to supporting the property market in 2010. Brokers will have been particularly pleased to see A&L’s emergence, showing that lenders value the intermediary market.”
