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The Guardian’s Nils Pratley has described HSBC’s announcement that it would be offering two-year extensions of fixed-rate mortgages to help those borrowers coming off fixed-rate deals as a ‘neat stunt’ but ‘not a revolution’. The offer will run from 14 April until 18 May and has been met with both praise and scepticism. With HSBC only having a 3% share of the mortgage market, it is no wonder that, as Pratley puts it, the company ‘is exploiting its rivals’ troubles to pick off some of their best customers.’ He adds that HSBC might see this opportunity as ‘a reward for standing back from the madness of the UK mortgage industry over the past few years.’

But this reward is not one to have been born out of a well-thought out process, according to the Telegraph’s Damian Reece. He believes that it is ‘purely through luck, rather than judgement that HSBC now finds itself in such a conservative financing position’. In turn, it was the bank’s judgement that ‘got it into such a mess in the US’. But Reece also says the bank has now ‘woken up to an opportunity to boost its UK profits and mortgage market share when demand for loans is outstripping supply.’ HSBC has speculated that its demand for mortgages will treble thanks to the offer, but Pratley stresses that ‘Again, this is not an earthquake,’ especially as this ‘trebling’ is only for the five weeks during which the offer is open. He also points out that HSBC is more likely to benefit if it repeats the offer during the big mortgage re-set months of August and September, as competitors will be more worried and more borrowers will benefit. But whether HSBC can cope with the number of applicants for the deal is another matter. ‘I just hope its systems are up to it,’ says Reece.