The managing director was speaking at her firm’s annual conference at Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, and said that the number of exclusive deals on offer to networks had skyrocketed.
Laker said: “We’ve had 460 exclusive and semi-exclusive products in 2011, with 82 pure exclusives just to us.
“When you think back to 2008 it was almost a golden currency, most lenders were terrified to hand out exclusives to any network for fear of the other networks going bananas.
“So to be back up to 460 is fantastic as exclusives are part of the industry’s currency and it’s great that we’ve got that back.”
She added that 2012 had seen a reduction in lending by some banks, with her network now working more closely with a number of building societies.
“There’s been a bit of a change in the mix of lenders since 2011, I think Abbey were very prominent in 2011 but not so prominent in 2012. Their share has been taken up by Nationwide, and I think it’s fair to say that Lloyds has also been pretty consistent.
“We’ve picked up a lot of business with lots of smaller building societies, they’re very keen to do more lending and we’re looking to open up more opportunities with them. They can sometimes do things that are a little more quirky.”
Mortgage Intelligence recently acquired protection specialists FYB and Laker said that protection would continue to be a growth area for the industry, but warned advisers that the upcoming gender directive would mean big changes in the market.
“There’s lots of change in the protection market coming up in 2013 and we need to be on the button in terms of what’s happening and being ahead of the game.
“It’s fair to say that a few protection providers have said that it’s going to be pretty tough in January when the new rates come out as none of the providers can confer with each other and this could lead to a disparity in pricing early January.”
