The trend seems to be downwards at the moment for new releases of 2 year fixed rates.

Abbey are releasing a 2 year fixed rates for their existing current account holders (so, not all of us then!) but, if you are one and have been for a while, and you are moving house, you have available a 2 year fixed rate with a free valuation and £250 cashback at 3.19% with a £999 arrangement fee.

While not everyone will qualify, indeed, probably hardly anyone will, this new rate is market leading and will force the other lenders to consider repricing downwards – especially Halifax who are puzzlingly uncompetitive at the moment. However, other lenders may not need to reprice this aggressively. The qualification criteria Abbey are imposing means this could be a canny loss leader that costs them almost nothing except the price of marketing materials, but does gain them great headlines.

Nevertheless, conditions or not – it raises the stakes – a price war in the mortgage market has been what the country has been crying out for for 2 years.

We’ve also entered a world where people on ‘good’ variable rates can now consider remortgaging onto fixed for 2 or 3 years.