CLS Money has announced another record year for new business, with specialist first charge lending being largely responsible for the company’s success.

New business volumes at Essex-based CLS Money increased 112% in 2018/2019 and the highest percentage of cases were introduced to non-high street lenders.

CLS Money’s 2019 new business pipeline is continuing to grow.

“Specialist lending is definitely the place brokers need to be fully involved in,” Clayton Shipton, managing director of CLS Money, commented.

“From the evidence we have seen a high percentage of active homebuyers and those seeking remortgages typically do not fit the template of the average high street lender.”

He continued: “If they have tried to go directly themselves, the experience of being turned down has given them a greater appreciation of what a broker can do.”

He said customers prefer advisers with access to multiple lending sources that can give comprehensive advice and provide valuable human contact throughout the process.

According to Shipton, there are a number of reasons why perfectly good cases do not fit the high-street template but they only tend to surface after the initial sourcing sweep.

“Predominantly, change of circumstances, credit history, changes in job status, self-employment of gaps in employment history tend to crop up, along with issues involving the property, which can stem from specific instructions given to surveyors by individual lenders,” he explained.

Shipton said that although the credit crunch was over a decade ago, the knock-on effects – in terms of changing the way people are remunerated and job security, among other factors – have meant that more customers are turning to specialist lenders to fulfil their needs.