Newcastle Building Society has announced an increase its mortgage standard variable rate (SVR). Effective from 1 April, the society’s SVR for affected properties in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will increase by 0.28% from 4.91% to 5.19%. The lender said this rise reflects a change in market conditions and lending costs. The change will affect residential, self-build and buy-to-let customers with products linked to the lender’s SVR. Newcastle stated that any customers with queries or concerns about their mortgage repayments should contact the society.

Legal services provider, ONP Group, has confirmed it is integrating its systems with ChatGPT in order to remove administration tasks and enhance its customer journeys. The move will see the firm become the first high-volume conveyancer to implement the advanced OpenAI chatbot. Launched in November last year, ChatGPT’s artificial intelligence (AI) allows it to give human-like responses to questions, write stories and engage in conversation. ONP will use ChatGPT’s technology to automate document analysis in the conveyancing and remortgage process.

MPowered Mortgages has announced an increase to the cashback it offers on five-year products. Across all the lender’s five-year fixed products, cashback has been boosted by £500 – bringing the total cashback reward to £1,000 on every remortgage case, and £500 on every purchase case. MPowered’s loans are available from £200,000 up to £1.5m, with rates starting from 4.13%. The lender has also confirmed it is reducing rates on its two-year fixed products, in a bid to support borrowers facing ongoing financial pressure as the cost of living increases. Rates now start from 4.64% for purchase cases, down from 5.13%, from 4.74% for £999 fee cases, and from 4.90% for £0 fee purchase options.

Aspen Bridging has completed a £2.25m loan for an existing client after a developer’s late change of plans on a Surrey development required a sales exit bridge. Originally, the enquiry was a £6m conversion loan on which Aspen had issued a competitive full offer, but the developer then decided to sell the property and focus on their existing international projects. However, the client decided to sell the UK project to another developer. Previously used as offices, the planning enables the property to be converted into an eight-unit scheme comprising of six flats and two adjoining houses, with a GDV £10.8m. The deal was concluded within three weeks at 65% LTV based on current market value with planning.

Gatehouse Bank has made rate increases across a selection of its savings products. This includes its easy access account and easy access cash ISA, its one-year, 18-month, and two-year Woodland saver cash ISAs, as well as all of its fixed term Woodland saver deposit accounts. The biggest increase in expected profit rate applies to the Bank’s one-year Woodland Saver account, which has risen by 0.25 percentage points to 4.35%. Gatehouse has also announced several more rate increases across the rest of the product range.

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