You may have borrowing across a range of products such as mortgages, arranged overdrafts, loans, store cards and credit cards. A regular review can be really helpful for managing your money as effectively as possible. There are a few options available which may help, subject to eligibility.
- Combining borrowing to reduce monthly payments or the amount you pay overall.
- Changing the term of your mortgage to reduce your monthly payment or pay off faster to reduce the interest you pay overall.
- Switching to a new mortgage deal with a lower interest rate, to reduce the monthly amount you pay.
1. Combining borrowing to reduce monthly payments or the amount you pay overall
If you have multiple borrowing products like store cards, credit cards, personal loans or arranged overdrafts it may help to consolidate them into a single product with a single monthly payment. This will help you budget more easily as you won’t need to worry about multiple payments. It could also reduce the amount you pay monthly and the amount of interest paid overall – but it’s important to understand how much interest you are paying in relation to each.
Sometimes combining all borrowing into one or extending a product term can reduce how much you pay each month, but could result in you paying more interest overall.
Balance Transfer
- If you have multiple credit cards, it may help to keep all your credit balances in one place and transfer high interest balances to a card with a lower rate. There may be a fee to transfer. Our balance transfer page.
Debt Consolidation/Refinance
- Consolidating your debt under one loan may help as unlike a store card, credit card or arranged overdraft, a loan gives you a clear date that your borrowing will be paid off by. More information about debt consolidation.
- If you are a Bank of Scotland or Halifax mortgage customer and have larger borrowing needs to consolidate, you might be able to apply for additional borrowing on your mortgage. Similar to an unsecured loan, you’ll have one monthly payment and a clear date of when your borrowing will be paid off. Information about additional borrowing.
You could lose your home if you don’t keep up your mortgage repayments.
2. Changing the term of your mortgage to reduce your monthly payment or pay off faster to reduce the interest you pay overall
You can ask to change the mortgage term from what we originally agreed with you. This might be because:
- You think you can afford to pay more and would like to pay off your mortgage sooner, reducing the interest you pay over the life of your mortgage.
Note: if you are in a fixed term mortgage there may be early repayment charges, so you need to work out what is most appropriate for you.
or;
- You want to reduce your monthly payments by extending your mortgage term. You will need to get our agreement to do this.
Extending your mortgage term can reduce your monthly cost, but remember by repaying your mortgage over a longer period this will however increase the amount of interest you pay overall. Find out more about how you can manage your mortgage.
3. Mortgage product transfers to reduce the monthly amount you pay
You may be able to switch to a cheaper deal by applying for a Mortgage Product Transfer, early repayment charges may apply, visit our switching deals page for more information.
You could lose your home if you don’t keep up your mortgage repayments.
If you would like some suggestions on budgeting and planning for the future we have created a helpful page on how to make the most out of your money.