Banks and building societies have had an awful lot of bad press over the course of the past couple of years, with many people blaming their greed for the credit crunch and following economic down turn.

But a recent survey, conducted amongst people with existing homeowner loans, has revealed that borrowers are more satisfied with their loan provider now than they were twelve months ago. The survey, conducted by Which?, has shown that the average score for lenders in a satisfaction survey has increased form 58 per cent last year, to 62 per cent twelve months later.

The majority of those interviewed said that they were impressed with the way their lender managed to keep them informed of things like interest rate changes on their homeowner loan and how easy the annual statement was to understand, although they were not satisfied that generally their lender was reluctant to let them know about any new loan deals and products which may save then money on their existing loan deal.

Smaller lenders scored much higher than the larger lenders, with Abbey, Barclays, Northern Rock, RBS and the Halifax all remaining near the bottom of the table.

James Daley of Which? commented on the survey, he said “The cost of a deal is usually the top priority when it comes to choosing a mortgage provider, but getting good service matters too. It’s encouraging to see that mortgage lenders have seen an increase in customer satisfaction after a difficult year.

But the big lenders are still performing below average, despite all the public funding some have received over the last year. Make sure you shop around for your mortgage and remember to take mortgage fees into account as well as the interest rate when choosing a deal, so you don’t end up paying over the odds.”