Barclays has been forced to remove the majority of its mortgage product range as a further move to mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It is now only accepting applications for products of up to 60% loan to value (LTV).

A spokesperson, said: “It enables our colleagues to provide greater help to those customers requesting mortgage payment holiday arrangements for financial support.

“We expect to launch a fresh range of residential and buy to let products shortly and we apologise for any inconvenience this causes in the interim.”

Halifax has removed all mortgages over 60% LTV from sale, with the exception of product transfers and further advances.

The temporary changes only apply to intermediary lending and also affect the BM Solutions and Scottish Widows brands. Product transfers, further advances and direct to lender applications will continue as normal.

The bank said the outbreak of Covid-19 has had a direct impact on its processing resources, in an email to its intermediaries.

This has led it to withdraw new mortgage and remortgage products across its residential range for borrowers with a deposit of less than 40 per cent.

In the email, Halifax said it wanted to continue to focus on its existing customers and support them with payment holidays to keep their breathing space on their mortgage payments.

It said the withdrawal of products was a temporary measure and it would update brokers regularly.

However, for those going direct, ie not through a broker, there’s no change.