Second charge business rose 44 per cent last year ‒ FLA

The FLA cited 2,174 new second charge agreements in December worth £99m and 25,877 new agreements for all of 2021 valued at 1.11bn. 

Fiona Hoyle (pictured), the FLA director of consumer and mortgage finance and inclusion, said: “The second charge mortgage market has reported a sustained recovery in new business volumes since April 2021. There is still room for growth as new business remains 16 per cent lower by value and 14 per cent lower by volume than in 2019.”

FLA members include second-charge mortgage lenders, banks and other financial service providers.

In 2021, FLA members provided £132bn of new finance to UK businesses and households. Of that, £101bn was in the form of consumer credit, representing more than a third of total new consumer credit written in the UK last year.

Overall, the FLA said, new consumer finance business grew by 16 per cent in December, compared with the same month in 2020. New business grew by 15 per cent for all of 2021 compared with 2020, but was still four per cent lower than in 2019.

Geraldine Kilkelly, the FLA’s director of research and chief economist, said: “FLA’s consumer finance markets made a strong recovery during 2021, with new business only four per cent below pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year.”

She added, however, that market and economic conditions would stay “challenging”’ in 2022, with “many households facing a significant squeeze on disposable incomes from higher inflation, interest rates and taxes.”