NatWest is raising rates again for the second time in less than a week.
The lender will increase rates on new contracts, product transfers and additional loans tomorrow, after raising prices earlier Friday.
Many deals within the new range of activities increased by 28 basis points.
Because product transfer rates are tailored to individual borrowers, the magnitude of these increases has not been disclosed.
John Charcol, technical mortgage manager Nicholas Mendes, said: “It signals another difficult week, with lenders still trying to balance rising funding costs with service levels.
“With oil returning above $116 per barrel as the conflict has intensified, inflation risks remain very high.
“Markets had hoped for a softer interest rate path earlier this year, but that has become much harder to justify as energy prices rise again and concerns grow about wider disruption to supply routes.
“That is important for mortgages, because when oil moves like this, markets start to wonder whether inflation will remain higher for longer or even start to rise again. This will then directly impact interest rate expectations and swap prices.
“The pressure on lenders is that fixed-rate mortgages are priced at future funding costs, and those costs remain both high and volatile.
“In such circumstances, further selective repricing, product withdrawals and short-term changes appear likely again this week.”
“In a market like this, one move by a lender rarely remains isolated.”
Aaron Strutt, product and communications director at Trinity Financial, said: “NatWest is the latest major lender to increase rates, but this time both fixes and trackers are going up.
“NatWest’s two-year fixes are virtually the cheapest on the market and the best buy mortgage from 4.47% rises to 4.75%.
“Tracker rates look much better than many of the solutions at the moment, especially if you think the Bank of England base rate will have to fall rather than rise this year.
“NatWest is increasing its lowest tracker rate by 28 basis points from 4.19% to 4.47%. Nationwide still has a two-year fix of 4.5% for home movers and Halifax has a two-year tracker of 3.96%, which is 0.21% higher than the Bank of England base rate.
“More of the larger lenders are still increasing their fixed and tracker rates and it looks like we are getting closer to the lowest interest rates between 4.75% and 5%.”