They got an objective from the FSA to get to know their broker panel a lot, lot better – and it’s resulted in a flurry of activity, which will undoubtedly build over the coming months.

Our network has been holding meetings with lenders on this subject since the middle of last year.

We’ve been going deep into how we recruit and vet firms and advisers; how we ensure they are fit, proper, trained and competent; and how we monitor and report on them once they’re working with us. We explain our risk monitoring and the steps we take in the (thankfully few) cases where we find a problem.

In most cases, we’ve found our data to be more comprehensive than that which the lenders themselves have available.

However, there are clear signs that pretty much all lenders are working on this, to get their data into a state both to be able to satisfy the FSA’s requirements and to begin to make judgements on who they want to do business with in the longer term.

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An early implementation of the proposals for Individual Registration (IR), something that which has been requested by AMI and by most intermediary firms, could help this approach a great deal.

However, this appears to be less and less likely as the FSA transforms itself into the FCA and resources are directed to other priorities. In fact, it could be another two years till the IR requirements are implemented.

Legal & General Network views the investment of time and effort in getting closer to our lender partners in this way as a valuable one.

Closer working, better communications and understanding has to be the way for lenders and brokers to work together over the next few years as the market recovers. The MMR will require us to move in this direction too.

The reality of our market today is that brokers have few choices of who to deal with for volume mainstream lending.

And these lenders can’t ignore the relatively small number of big distribution groups that have strong market shares amongst the intermediary community.

Getting to know each other a little better after all this time might not be such a bad idea.

Stephen Smith, director of housing at Legal & General