Private Bank Mortgage

Direct works when a borrower already banks privately and the bank has appetite for the property and loan size. A specialist broker earns its place when the borrower does not know which private banks are lending, wants several banks compared side by side, or has been declined. Enness Global compares private banks with specialist lenders on the same case.

Private banks do not publish criteria in the way high street lenders do, and appetite moves with the bank’s balance sheet and country exposure. Some private banks refer clients to Enness Global when they cannot help them.

A whole-of-market broker can. For a remortgage on a London home worth several million pounds where the borrower wants to increase the loan, Enness Global presents the case to private banks and specialist lenders at the same time. Terms are compared on loan size, repayment type, early repayment charges and any relationship condition.

A private bank may offer the larger loan on an interest-only basis but ask for assets to be placed with it. A specialist lender may lend against the property alone with less flexibility. The remortgage page covers the process.

Yes. A wealth manager who wants to keep managing a client’s portfolio can refer the client to a broker who approaches only lenders with no assets under management condition. Enness Global runs this as a standard instruction: banks that require assets to move are excluded, and the wealth manager sees any condition a lender proposes.

The figures under “Who lends on this?” show how common this is. The mortgages without assets under management page explains what these lenders ask for instead.

Yes, and it is a regular route into Enness Global. A private bank may decline a case on country exposure, property type, loan size, an unfamiliar structure or an interest-only limit. The banker keeps the client relationship; Enness Global arranges the mortgage elsewhere and reports back. There are a few private banks who only work with a tiny number of brokers, and Enness Global is in that set.

The referral protects the banker’s relationship, and the mortgage is placed without starting the fact-find again. Bankers who introduce clients work with Enness Global under a written introducer arrangement, described on the introducers page.

Private banks look at the full picture: earned income, investment income, business profits, liquid assets, existing borrowing and the property itself. Where a high street lender applies a fixed income multiple, a private bank forms a view of how the loan will be serviced and repaid.

That flexibility comes with more paperwork, not less: a full statement of assets and liabilities and a source of wealth explanation.

The three lender types most often compared for a large residential loan differ in what they look at and what they ask in return.

Terms depend on status, valuation and lender criteria.

A private bank mortgage usually takes six to twelve weeks from first conversation to completion. Initial assessment and lender selection take one to two weeks, indicative terms one to two weeks more, and valuation, underwriting and credit approval three to six weeks. Offer to completion then follows the conveyancing timetable. New-client onboarding, cross-border documents and trust or company structures are the usual reasons it takes longer.

Enness Global’s lender database profiles 415 actively tracked lenders. Of those, 36 are private banks or securities-backed lenders by Enness’s own classification (Enness Lender Database, September 2026). Of the 116 lenders whose residential criteria Enness Global tracks from published sources, 75 (around two thirds) lend without requiring assets under management (Enness Lender Database, September 2026). Terms depend on status, valuation and lender criteria. They include 24 building societies, 20 high street or challenger banks, 13 international banks and 5 specialist buy-to-let lenders; the remaining 13 are specialist or other lenders.

Clients come to a private bank for lending the high street will not give them: a higher loan to value, a proper understanding of their income and assets, and flexibility on international income or other assets. Private banks are not always the right solution, they can be more expensive and may want assets under management, but for the right customer they bring speed, service and lending tailored to the circumstances.

Islay Robinson, Group CEO, Enness Global.

Islay Robinson co-founded Enness Global in 2007 and has arranged private bank lending for high-net-worth clients since. He writes about the market at islayrobinson.co.uk.