Royal Bank of Scotland expected to follow Lloyds and cut London lending before crackdown

Lenders are facing a regulatory crackdown as the Bank of England prepares to pop the London housing bubble, with Barclays and Santander among those that could see lending curbed, according to a leading mortgage market expert. Speculation is also mounting that Royal Bank of Scotland, which is 80 per cent owned by the State, will be next to announce voluntary curbs after Lloyds Banking Group last week toughened its lending terms in London. Lloyds, which is 25 per cent State-owned, said that it would restrict London borrowers looking for loans of more than £500,000 to four times their salary. Lloyds insists the move was based on deep research and suspicions of a bubble in prices, but Ray Boulger of mortgage broker John Charcol said the Lloyds announcement had ‘all the signs of being political’, adding fuel to speculation that RBS, which owns NatWest, would also take voluntary steps before any action is imposed.....Read more here