Secured lending increases 32.8% and sees 'game changing' new lender

This means the lending total is £74,860,000 more than had been lent by the end of June 2013. It also marks the highest 6 month period of sustained lending since the end of 2008, when the credit crunch began to take effect on second charge lending.

Matt Tristram, Co-Founder & Director of Loans Warehouse & Clearly Loans comments:

"The sector has definitely found a level it's comfortable at, which at present is around the £50m per month mark. However we believe there is about to be a potential game changer with the launch of Optimum Credit.

"There is some mystery around the Cardiff based lender as there is no published matrix and a purely score based system, something the industry has always steered away from, priding itself on manual underwriting, so it will be interesting to see how brokers react to a new way of working.

"Since launching internally within Loans Warehouse we've seen applicatioons being accepted with rates as low as 3%!"

The Loans Warehouse report also asked if the secured loan industry would compete with mortgage lenders on rate in the coming years. In a statement last week, RBS announced they would be providing a £20m funding line to Optimum Credit.

Michael Murray of RBS said:

"The provision of the facility to Optimum Credit reinforces RBS’s support for the secured loan industry and the positive fundamentals we see over the coming years. We remain committed to supporting existing clients and open to looking at new opportunities."

"Optimum was an exciting transaction for the team, given it is a start up who are doing things a little bit differently, and is backed by an experienced management team who have an in-depth knowledge of their market."

Matt Tristram concluded:

"For the first time this year there has recently been a slight decrease in the average asking price for properties being put up for sale. What with talk of a “housing price bubble” particularly in the South East, I’m not so sure that reporting a marginal reduction should be classed as negative, maybe more of a stabilisation."