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Mortgage Lending

Helping a customer buy and own a home is one of the most significant things we can do for them.

Additionally, supporting our customers if they have trouble paying can make a significant difference to their lives.

Mortgage highlights 2022 [1]:

Buy a home

  • In 2022 we helped more than 200,000 new customers complete their mortgage application, totalling over £41bn worth of new lending.
  • More than 50,000 of these customers were first-time buyers.
  • We have grown our mortgage book by c.£14bn to c.£187bn in 2022, increasing our market share to 11.5% (+0.5%).
  • NatWest Group’s systems enabled 19,500 new customers to apply for a mortgage online, an increase of 47% from 2021.
  •  We have an ambition to support our UK mortgage customers to increase their residential energy efficiency and incentivise purchasing of the most energy efficient homes, with an ambition that 50% [2] of our UK mortgage portfolio has an EPC rating of C or above by 2030.
  • As at 31 December 2022, 41.5%(*) (31 December 2021 38.3%) of our UK residential mortgages portfolio that had EPC data available[3] was rated as EPC C or higher.
  • As part of our target to provide £100 billion climate and sustainable funding and financing between 1 July 2021 and the end of 2025. We aim to provide at least £10 billion in lending for EPC A and B rated residential properties between 1 January 2023 and the end of 2025.
  • We have completed £2.9 billion(*) to the end of 2022 in Retail Banking Green Mortgages completions since they launched in Q4 2020[4] (2022: £2.2 billion).
  • Through our Home Energy Plan a publicly available and free to use  portal, we are providing users with hints and tips on how to make a residential property more energy efficient and sharing customised suggestions to help a home reach its full energy performance potential. We are also partnering with Places for People, British Gas Centrica and Schneider Electric – coordinated by Pineapple Sustainable Partnerships - to show that retrofitting homes at scale can be an achievable and affordable goal.

(*) Within the scope of EY assurance.

 

Own a home

  • This year more than 190k of our existing customers coming to the end of their deal have chosen to take a new deal with us, with over 55% of these customers choosing to renew their mortgage digitally.
  • To help customers secure their interest rate, we extended our mortgage roll-off window to six months. Customers can choose a product at any time during the window and still change to an alternative product if their circumstances change during the window.
  • Customers have a range of channels to manage their mortgage needs – digital, telephone or face-to-face advice. All digital services go through accessibility testing.
  • We re-introduced tracker rate mortgages including a track & switch feature which allows customers to switch to a fixed rate with us at a later date, without incurring an early repayment charge.
  • We remain focused on helping vulnerable customers at risk of being financially stretched. We continue to proactively contact customers who:
  1. Are on standard variable rate (SVR), who may be financially stretched and may benefit from switching to a fixed rate product.
  2. Are coming to the end of a fixed-term deal and facing higher repayments, which may result in them becoming financially stretched in the future, to outline the options available to them.
  • We also proactively contact customers who have:
  1. Interest-only mortgages, to offer support when considering their options to repay.
  2. An offset account but are not benefitting from their offset facility.

Repossessions

Home repossession is always a last resort for NatWest Group, we have a team dedicated to supporting customers in financial difficulty and find the best way to manage this with them. It is our policy to only go ahead with a repossession after all other appropriate options have been explored with the customer.

In 2022, we repossessed 202 (18 business and 184 residential) properties, compared with 189 (17 business and 172 residential) in 2021.

Repossessions, although increasing this year, continue to be low with the majority either vacant, or keys handed back.

 
[1] UK Retail Banking – NatWest Bank Plc, The Royal bank of Scotland Plc, Ulster Bank Northern Ireland.
[2] Percentage of aggregate UK mortgage exposure.
[3] As at 31 December 2022, £138.8 billion, 68%, of the total residential mortgages portfolio had EPC data available.
[4] Since launch in Q4 2020 Retail Banking Green Mortgage products only. Green mortgages are available to all intermediaries for residential and Buy to Let properties with an energy performance rating of A or B and specific new build developer properties. Max LTV apply, selected mortgages only. Exclusions apply. Available for purchase, porting and re-mortgage applications. Product fees apply. 

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Read more about how we aim to make our banking more accessible for all our customers.

Read more about how we measure customer satisfaction and act upon the feedback.