Don’t just take it from me, last week we revealed that secured loan lending in August exceeded £30m for the second month in a row. These kinds of figures haven’t been seen since 2009, when typical lending levels were on average £47m a month.
At its peak, the secured loan industry produced nearly £300m per month only to plummet to lows of £16m in 2010. However, our figures revealed yesterday that lending is now 50% higher than this time last year and the second charge sector has officially doubled in size since those 2010 lows.
Supply meets demand…
In this fortnight alone, not one, but three lenders revealed key plans for the future of the industry.
Equifinance was first, announcing it is close to securing ‘seven figure’ funding and predicting that this would increase its annual lending to £5m over the next couple of years. Next was Blemain Group who announced it had successfully secured £640m of additional funding.
Then on Wednesday, Prestige revealed it had been bought by OneSavings Bank, which is excellent news for the industry. This is the second lender to be owned by a bank which brings some credibility to the market and I look forward to the unveiling of a very different product range.
We’re seeing a real turn around in opinions on second charge lending. The fact that the national press is beginning to sit up and pay attention to the sector offers comfort to both brokers and consumers. Recent articles by the Daily Express and the Financial Times highlighted the benefits of homeowner loans and even though it’s only in its third month, MSN money used the Secured Loan Index as a source in an article about the sector’s recovery.
Summer 2012 was officially the best summer the UK has ever witnessed. The weather may have been rubbish but that didn’t stop us from celebrating. We reveled in national pride during the Diamond Jubilee, the Euros, the Olympics and the Paralympics. Nobody cheered louder than Britain when Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France or when Andy Murray became the first British man to win the US Open since Fred Perry but it was the finance industry that ended the Great British summer on a high, with the announcement of the resurrected secured loan market.
