David Hollingworth, associate director of communications at L&C said the TSB launch hasn’t been a secret but this is good news for the whole broker market.

“TSB is already up-and running from a lending perspective but what we can do is offer them the controls feedback they want and get them some broker volumes coming through so they can learn any lessons that need to be learnt,” he said.

TSB mortgage intermediary director Roland McCormack said: “Service is absolutely the key in differentiating TSB in the broker market which is why we’re taking a considered approach and running a small pilot in December with a view to rolling out to the wider market early in the New Year.”

Hollingworth said TSB’s product range is already offering product innovation via marketing on Stamp Duty and cash backs, but added: “Everyone knows they [lenders] will have to differentiate themselves on product given the ferociousness of the mortgage competition at the moment.”

TSB launched a partnership with Legal & General (L&G) to offer protection insurance to its customers from the beginning of July 2014.

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The lender signed an exclusive five-year agreement with Legal & General to provide TSB customers with critical illness, whole of life, term and decreasing term assurance and income protection.

In February, TSB appointed former Bristol & West managing director Roland McCormack as its first mortgage intermediary director handing him the brief to build the lender’s intermediary arm.

The latest lending data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders showed TSB advanced £1.4bn in mortgages in 2013, placing it joint-14th on the list of the top 20 lenders in the UK.