The survey, carried out by software provider Iress, gathered statistics from 14 mortgage lenders which accounted for 53% of total gross lending in 2014 and compares their performance during the tax year.
Banks’ intermediary mortgage sales accounted for 74% of total mortgage business, up from 52% for the tax year ended 2014.
Overall, the intermediary market share has risen from 56% last year to 78% this year.
Prior to the launch of the Mortgage Market Review (MMR) intermediary mortgage sales through mutuals accounted for 69% of total business while bank intermediary sales were 39%.
The MMR removed the non-advised sale option commonly used by retail banks and building societies which meant lenders had to shift to providing their customers with full mortgage advice. The regulatory burden of advice and the cost of training branch staff to become CeMap-qualified has pushed many lenders to rely on the intermediary channel more heavily.
The findings also showed that the intermediary channel had proved to be the most efficient at processing mortgage offers to completion boasting an 84% rate of completion. This compared to an 81% completion rate through the telephony channel, 76% in-branch and 58% completion rate for online applications.
