Following the launch of ‘Loughborough for Intermediaries’, lending last year rose by 49% to £66 million.

Eileen Wheatley, head of intermediary lending at Loughborough, said “2019 was a busy and exciting year for our new channel team which has already doubled in size to keep pace with our growing panel of brokers and firms.”

Business development manager Ashley Pearson added “We’ve had a phenomenal level of support from our panel members over the last twelve months which has contributed to our fantastic results. We continue to build our proposition with feedback from the brokers being at the forefront of our development.”

When launching the intermediary channel, Loughborough Building Society made the strategic decision to support only directly authorised intermediaries across England and Wales. This was to ensure they could effectively manage growing levels of business while building the team.

Ashley Pearson has been instrumental in building the proposition. He provides support nationally and plans to spend most of his time out and about in 2020 now that the central support team has expanded.

Tara Nicholson, who has extensive knowledge of mortgages, joined the society as product development manager shortly after Ashley. This appointment resulted in a variety of solution-based product launches in the last year such as 5.5 times income, regulated buy-to-let and Buy for Uni to name but a few.

Direct feedback from brokers has and continues to shape enhancements to existing solutions as well as provide ideas for new ones.

In the second half of last year the team welcomed a further two new members. Luke Berrington joined as intermediary account manager and Cheryl Eames as intermediary support assistant. Both have worked in financial services for some time and bring the team’s joint mortgage experience to over 70 years.

The Loughborough for Intermediaries team believes the next 12 months will be as exciting as the last as they look to take their proposition online to enhance the intermediaries experience.

Development of an online application portal is underway with an expected launch during 2020.