Major lenders including NatWest and Nationwide cut interest rates on fixed mortgage deals as they bet on inflation dropping

Major lenders including NatWest, Nationwide and Coventry Building Society have cut interest rates on fixed mortgage deals as they bet on inflation dropping.

All six of the country’s largest lenders, including Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group, have slashed their rates in the past week, in the fourth week in a row that mortgage prices have dropped.

Lenders including Barclays and Yorkshire Building Society cut their rates by as much as 0.61 percentage points on residential fixed rate mortgages yesterday.

Official inflation figures published this morning are expected to buoy hopes that households will feel some reprieve from the pace of eye-watering price increases.

Inflation dropped to a 15-month low in June and is expected to have fallen further in July.

Lenders such as Barclays slashed rates by as much as 0.61 percentage points on residential fixed rate mortgages as they bet on inflation dropping

But the Bank of England is expected to keep increasing interest rates, after it hiked rates to a 15-year high of 5.25pc earlier this month. This means mortgages are unlikely to keep falling every week.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said yesterday there was ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ in his plan to halve inflation and that bringing inflation down was the ‘best way’ to bring interest rates down.

There have been warnings of a slowdown in the housing market due to the cost of living crisis, causing providers to slash prices as competition for good deals hots up.

News of reductions will be welcomed by 1.3million borrowers facing the end of an existing fixed rate deal on their home this year, as they have been fearing a huge hike to their mortgage costs.