Over 40 firms have so far confirmed their attendance with another 20 due to make final deci-sions to attend over the next few weeks.

Exhibitors who have signed up so far include Barclays, UTB, Legal & General, Pepper, Yorkshire BS, Aldermore, Interbay Commercial, Keystone, Landbay and Berkeley Alexan-der, among others.

In addition, MBE will be hosting the FIBA Annual Conference, which also means a number of their specialist finance lenders and service providers will also be in attendance.

“We are delighted with the response so far from exhibitors,” said Mike Mikunda, director of MBE.

“Besides the excellent start to the year in the lending market and the desire to engage with in-termediaries, our move back to Manchester is being seen as providing a much more accessi-ble venue for brokers and therefore a better opportunity for exhibitors to meet more interme-diaries.

“There is still time for more businesses to talk to us about exhibiting and seeing what an in-vestment at MBE in Q1 could mean for their business prospects in the rest of 2022.”