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A leading specialist lender has revealed that one of its SME loan products has recorded a 52 per cent rise in volumes in the last year, as an increasing number of self-employed workers seek alternative funding.
Bluestone Mortgages, which was recently rated by brokers as the leading specialist lender, has announced that its Lite Blue home loan product — which caters for self-employed borrowers who have been in business for 12 months or more — has seen a 52 per cent rise in volumes year-on-year.
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Royden D’Vaz, Bluestone Mortgages’ national head of sales and marketing, commented: “While the market continues to attract start-ups, we’re also seeing more established SMEs seeking alternate financial solutions which aligns with the increased demand for our Lite Blue product.
“This can be largely attributed to the product’s flexible lending criteria that accepts applicants who have been trading for 12 months, but fall short of the standard 24-month requirement for funding required by traditional lenders.”
The Lite Blue product accounts for the majority (80 per cent) of the lender’s self-employed turnover, which accounts for 58 per cent of total turnover.
The lender has seen an increasing number of SMEs seeking finance in the last year, with its Business Easy loan product recording a 50 per cent increase in volume over the 12 months to February 2017.
Mr D’Vaz said that Bluestone Mortgages is “completely focused on specialist lending” and is channelling its efforts on providing brokers with “products designed to assist and benefit more customers – especially for self-employed borrowers”.
He said that as his company “doesn’t discriminate based on trading history” he believed the product uptake would continue to increase as the SME sector evolves.
Mr D’Vaz concluded: “We encourage brokers to continue to be solution providers. This equates to diversifying their business to evolve their advisory capacity, and in the process, take advantage of alternate revenue streams.
“To this point, the specialist lending space, especially the self-employed sector, is grossly underserviced and represents a sizeable market segment. We further encourage brokers to embrace specialist lending as part of their dealings and not leave revenue on the table.”
[Related: Brokers prompted to consider ‘slice’ of specialist lending]
