Mortgage costs for thousands of borrowers will jump from today when one of the country's biggest lenders hikes its standard variable rate (SVR).

Santander's 0.5% rise to 4.74% will result in an average increase of £26 a month, or £312 a year, for a typical £100,000 mortgage.

The hike is expected to affect hundreds of thousands of customers, although Santander has not disclosed the figure.

Santander's SVR change, first announced in August, is one of a number in recent months by lenders who have dashed hopes that households will see some benefit from the Bank of England's funding for lending scheme.

Santander blamed the increase on its own funding costs and pointed out that similar market dynamics drove its competitors to push up their SVR rates five months ago.

More than one million homeowners saw their mortgage rates increase in May as lenders such as Halifax, the Co-operative Bank and Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks raised their SVR rates, even though the Bank of England base rate remains at a historic 0.5% low.

At the end of August, Nationwide announced it was pushing up some mortgage rates for new borrowers, adding 0.3% to some fixed-rate products and 0.2% to tracker deals.