Nottingham Building Society has relaxed its residential and foreign national lending criteria, including cutting the income threshold to lend at 5.5x income.

The Nottingham has reduced the income threshold required to access its 5.5x income multiple from £85,000 to £60,000 gross income, including across joint applications.

Several lenders have increased their maximum income multiples recently, including NatWest, Aldermore and Barclays.

Borrowers starting new roles will no longer have to meet a minimum of time-in-job [AB2] requirement, making the process simpler.

These changes are coupled with interest rate cuts of up to 0.2bps on residential products and lower stress rates that were introduced from 14 November.

The mutual has also bolstered its foreign national lending proposition by extending access to international credit data through its partnership with Nova Credit.

Credit information can now be sourced from Ukraine and South Africa, taking the total number of supported countries to 15.

Nottingham Building Society’s deal with Nova Credit lets brokers access historic credit files across the following countries: India, Philippines, Australia, US, Canada, Germany, Austria, Spain, Switzerland, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Kenya and Korea.

The building society lends up to 90% LTV for foreign nationals arriving on visas.

Additionally, incoming foreign nationals on a family visa will now be eligible to apply.

Nottingham Building Society sales director Matt Kingston said: “This latest set of criteria updates reaffirm our commitment to creating fair and flexible routes to borrowing. We know that not every borrower’s journey is straightforward, which is why we’re focused on removing friction wherever we can, from recognising new employment to supporting foreign nationals with better access to credit data.”