Sole applicants earning above £75,000 can now be able to borrow up to 6 times their income on purchases and remortgages at 75% loan-to-value (LTV) and below.

The same 6 times LTI is available to joint applicants whose combined income exceeds £100,000.

In addition, NatWest has increased LTIs for a wider group of customers by raising the maximum to 5.5 times salary, up from 5 times salary.

These changes apply to repayment mortgages only.

Under the new criteria, a customer earning £75,000 a year could now borrow up to £37,500 more to fund their property purchase or remortgage.

NatWest has also launched a dedicated WhatsApp channel for mortgage brokers and intermediaries.

Launched on 26 January, the new channel allows mortgage brokers to make contact with the NatWest Intermediaries team to provide support with pre-application guidance, post-application support, and basic administrative tasks such as password resets from the NatWest Broker Portal.

NatWest Group head of mortgage propositions Lloyd Cochrane says: “Today we announce new lending criteria for our mortgage customers to help more people get the home or mortgage that they need.”

“As a major lender supporting the housing market in the UK, we are committed to championing home ownership and today’s changes allow us to responsibly lend more to our mortgage customers.”

“Alongside this, we have also launched a dedicated WhatsApp channel for mortgage brokers so that brokers can get instant access to our intermediaries team.”

“We have launched this to make it even easier for brokers to work with us. All these moves support our goal of bringing more joy and less stress to the process of buying a home in the UK.”