Mortgages Lenders rated and WRPs
The cost of your mortgage is likely to be your main concern when choosing a deal, especially in the economic downturn, but customer service is also important. The results of our latest mortgage lender satisfaction survey and our Which? Recommended Providers will help you make sure you get the best service and the best deal.
Our research
In June 2011 and January 2012 we surveyed 3,343 members of the Which? Connect online community about their mortgage and how satisfied they are with the service offered by their lender.
Survey results and Which? Recommended providers
| Mortgage lender satisfaction and Which? Recommended Providers | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lender | Interest rate | Overall cost of deal | Customer service | Informing you of better options | Resolving problems | Which? customer score |
| ING Direct | n/a |  | n/a | n/a | n/a | 89% |
| First Direct | |  | | | | 89% |
| Co-operative Bank | | | | n/a | n/a | 84% |
| Yorkshire BS |  | | | | | 82% |
The One Account |  | | | n/a | | 80% |
| Coventry BS | | | | n/a | n/a | 77% |
| | | | | 72% | |
Britannia BS | | | | | | 71% |
Nationwide | | | | | | 70% |
| Intelligent Finance | | | | n/a | n/a | 65% |
| NatWest | | | | | | 59% |
| Barclays/ Woolwich | | | | | | 58% |
| Cheltenham & Gloucester | | | | | | 58% |
| Bank of Ireland (inc. Bristol & West) | | | | n/a | n/a | 49% |
| Royal Bank of Scotland | | | | n/a | | 49% |
| Santander | | | | | | 46% |
| Northern Rock | | | | | | 44% |
| Lloyds TSB | | | | n/a | n/a | 43% |
| Halifax | | | | | | 40% |
Table notes
Star ratings out of five show levels of satisfaction with the interest rate Which? members are getting on their mortgage, the overall cost of their deal, customer service, how good their lender is at informing them of better options that are available to the them and how well they resolve problems. Which? customer scores are worked out using a combination of overall satisfaction and how likely members are to recommend their lender to a friend. The average satisfaction score was 60%. The Which? Recommended Providers are First Direct, Yorkshire Building Society and HSBC. These are lenders with the best customer scores that also offered at least eight top-10 mortgage deals in our scenarios over a recent four-week period. n/a = sample size too small.
Sample sizes ING Direct (30), First Direct (225), Co-operative Bank (62), Yorkshire Building Society (76), The One Account (66), Coventry Building Society (70), HSBC (114), Britannia Building Society (86), Nationwide Building Society (603), Intelligent Finance (49), Natwest (114), Barclays/Woolwich (293), Cheltenham & Gloucester (184), Bank of Ireland (inc Bristol & West) (36), The Royal Bank of Scotland (56), Santander (formerly Abbey and Alliance and Leicester) (396), Northern Rock (85), Lloyds TSB (42), Halifax (281).
The best and worst
ING Direct and First Direct share the lead place, scoring 89%. The Co-operative Bank is five points behind with 84%, followed by the Yorkshire Building Society, which scores 82%.
Lloyds TSB and Halifax are the bottom two of the 19 lenders rated, with respective scores of 43% and 40%
The overall average Which? customer score for mortgage lenders has remained unchanged at 60%.
Which? Recommended Providers
The current Which? Recommended Providers (WRPs) are First Direct, the Yorkshire Building Society and HSBC.
To decide on our WRPs we look at which lenders with the best scores also have consistently good deals. We update our WRPs every month.
- Every week we review which ten deals are the cheapest (by total cost over the deal period) in 26 different scenarios.
- A WRP will have had deals appear amongst the top ten, at least eight times - for either moving home or remortgaging - over a four week period.
Although choosing a WRP can help you find good deals as well as a good overall service, the best lender for you will depend on your circumstances. You should always do your own research using the Which? mortgage deal finder when you are looking for a new mortgage deal.
