Speaking at the Sesame Symposium in London today, Howard said that the MMR will “inevitably” hit consumers’ pockets because the cost to the lending industry of implementation will be huge.
He said: “The cost of implementation will inevitably feed through into the cost of products. It will be more expensive to process a mortgage and running the Approved Persons regime will also increase costs.”
However, Howard added that he was more concerned with the impact the MMR would have on business levels, with CML research suggesting many people will be barred from gaining a mortgage.
Nevertheless, speaking in the same debate, Kevin Purvey, head of intermediary sales for C&G at Lloyds Banking Group, said: “The cost of the MMR will get absorbed.
“At this stage, it’s very hard to know what the costs will look like and I think the mortgage market will remain competitive. When you look at M-Day and all the talk of how much regulation would cost, the market still remained very competitive afterwards.”
