High street bank bosses plan to press their concerns over rapidly rising mortgage rates to Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng in a meeting today (6 October).   

The crunch meeting is expected to be attended by the chief executives of the UK’s biggest lenders, including Alison Rose of NatWest, Charlie Nunn of Lloyds Banking Group, Ian Stuart at HSBC UK, Mike Regnier at Santander and Robin Bulloch at TSB at Number 11 Downing Street, according to a report in the Guardian.  

The leaders plan to raise concerns about rising borrowing costs, which surged last week after the government’s mini-budget sent UK financial markets into meltdown.  

Lending bosses might put table proposals that would mean the Treasury coordinates with the Bank of England to provide cheap funding for mortgages.  

The scheme could mirror the term funding package offered to banks during the pandemic, which allowed them to borrow money from the central bank at cheap rates with the intention that those savings be passed on to small business borrowers who were struggling during the health crisis.  

The meeting comes a day after the average two-year fixed-rate mortgage on the market topped 6% for the first time in 14 years. A typical two-year fix stood at 6.07% on Wednesday, according to Moneyfacts.    

The last time an average two-year fix was higher than this was in November 2008, when it stood at 6.31%, says the data group.    

The amount of mortgage products on the market fell by 41% to 2,273 last week, as firms pull products to work out how to reprice them as the cost of debt for the government and companies rose on international money markets, following the Chancellor’s intervention earlier this month, which cut income taxes, stamp duty and national insurance payments.