LONDON (Reuters) -British finance minister Rachel Reeves will set out measures to ease access to mortgages on Tuesday as part of what the government says will be a major set of financial services reforms aimed at boosting the country’s slow economy.
Reeves will make permanent an insurance scheme that encourages lenders to offer potentially riskier, high loan-to-value mortgages, implementing a pledge in last year’s election campaign, the finance ministry said.
The country’s Financial Conduct Authority – an influential regulator – would also look at allowing tenants’ track record on paying rent to be used as proof of creditworthiness for a mortgage, the ministry said.
“Britain cannot succeed and meet its growth ambitions without a financial services sector that is fighting fit and thriving,” Reeves is expected to say in her annual Mansion House speech in London’s financial district on Tuesday evening.
In last year’s speech Reeves said regulators had placed too little emphasis on supporting economic growth, one of the newly elected Labour government’s main goals.
Since then, growth has been lacklustre overall despite a strong first quarter of 2025. Many economists expect Reeves will have to raise taxes by tens of billions of pounds in her annual budget later this year to keep the public finances on track.
Last week the Bank of England relaxed its rules to allow banks and building societies to issue more mortgages at high multiples of borrowers’ incomes.
The central bank said this could allow up to 36,000 more mortgages to be approved in the space of a year.
Reeves welcomed the BoE’s move and said that as a result, Nationwide Building Society – Britain’s second-biggest lender – was about to lower the minimum income needed for a first-time buyer mortgage to 30,000 pounds ($40,323) from 35,000 pounds.
The median annual full-time salary in Britain last year was 37,430 pounds.
($1 = 0.7440 pounds)
(Reporting by David MillikenEditing by William Schomberg)
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