HSBC has announced rate cuts while other lenders are repricing upward. It's the same pattern seen after Halifax's recent move — the mortgage market isn't moving as one. For contractors, this split market is exactly why going direct to a single lender is the wrong approach.
What's happening in the market right now
Lenders are repricing independently and in opposite directions. HSBC cutting while others hold or rise means the best available rate on any given day shifts materially depending on which lender you happen to be looking at. This has always been true in theory — right now it's unusually pronounced. The spread between the most competitive and least competitive products in the market is wider than usual, and it's changing week to week.
For the majority of borrowers this is inconvenient. For contractors, it's a more serious problem — because rate isn't the only variable that matters.
Why this hits contractors harder than PAYE borrowers
Not all lenders assess contractor income the same way. Some use day rate multiplied by annualised working weeks. Others use net profit plus salary from accounts. The difference in borrowing capacity between those two methods can be £100,000 or more on the same actual income.
A lender offering a low headline rate may assess contractor income conservatively — meaning the "cheap" product isn't actually available at the loan size you need. You apply, go through underwriting, and discover their methodology caps you at a fraction of what a specialist lender would offer. The low rate was real; it just wasn't accessible to you at the loan amount required.
Going direct to HSBC — or any single lender — because their rate looks competitive ignores whether their underwriting methodology works for your income structure. A whole-of-market broker compares both rate and assessment basis simultaneously. That's a materially different exercise from a comparison website, which shows only headline rates.
The whole-of-market advantage for contractors
Specialist contractor lenders — including those that assess on true day rate multiples — often price competitively and assess income favourably. The right lender for a contractor is the one that offers the best combination of rate, assessment method, and criteria for your specific situation. That's rarely the lender who issued the most recent press release.
Brokers with whole-of-market access also have visibility of criteria changes before they hit the general press. Lenders tighten or loosen contractor criteria quietly — sometimes with very little notice. A broker watching the full market catches these changes and routes applications accordingly. A contractor applying direct discovers them the hard way, mid-application.
What to do now
If you've seen HSBC's rate cut and are tempted to apply direct — pause. Get a whole-of-market assessment first to confirm HSBC is genuinely the best option for your income structure, at the loan size you need, with criteria you can meet. That assessment takes the same amount of time as starting a direct application and protects you from a worse deal dressed up as a good one.
The same applies whenever any single lender makes a headline move. The question isn't "is this rate good?" — it's "is this rate good for a contractor on my income, at my loan size, with my contract structure?" Those are different questions, and only one of them has an answer a comparison site can give you.
Day Rate Finance has whole-of-market access and assesses you on your actual day rate. Before you go direct anywhere, talk to us first.
Related reading
When two major lenders move together it's a different signal. Here's what the broader directional shift means.
The earlier Halifax move — and how to decide whether to act on any single lender's pricing change.
How different lenders assess day rate income and what the difference in methodology means for your borrowing capacity.
Category: Lender Rate Cuts & Product Updates