Sesame Bankhall Group has announced that combined mortgage completions through its PMS Mortgage Club and Sesame Network were at their highest for more than a decade last year. PMS and Sesame mortgage completions rose by 18% in 2021 to £49.7bn, a £7.5bn increase on the previous year when this figure stood at £42.2bn. The figures showed that protection annual premium income through PMS and Sesame increased by 16% last year to £66.9m, a rise of £9.3 million, while general insurance policies written grew by 28%.

Pepper Money, has launched a new initiative to help customers make their homes more energy-efficient. As part of a commitment to ESG driven lending, the specialist lender is offering customers a free energy efficiency survey, Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), and tailored action plan. If the action plan requires expenditure to complete the work, Pepper Money said it can offer customers a second charge mortgage which could help finance the improvements. For any customers who undertake the suggested works, a second EPC can also be claimed to validate the improvements.

National broker firm, Just Mortgages has announced it is training its advisers to offer expert business protection advice. A total of 12 advisers have completed the course already, and the firm said it will conduct regular inductions across 2022. Self-employed advisers from both Just Mortgages and sister-wealth advice firm, Just Wealth, attended the two-day course, training them in both the mechanics of business protection and how to approach clients to have these conversations.

Twenty7Tec has now recorded three million mortgage searches in 2022. The mortgage technology and data provider hit one million searches on 24 January, before hitting the two million milestone on 10 February. Twenty7Tec said the number of mortgage searches being conducted through its CloudTwenty7 platform have increased exponentially over the last five years, and that the latest figures show that housing demand is “far from slowing down” as confidence in the market remains strong.

Dudley Building Society has made several changes to its shared ownership, self-build and buy-to-let product ranges, as the lender continues to make its offering accessible to a wider number of applicants. The shared ownership offering has seen an increased maximum LTV to 95% of share from 90%, in addition to reduced rates of 3.49% from 3.99%. Dudley’s buy-to-let, holiday let and self-build offerings also have increased maximum LTVs, with the maximum LTV for buy-to-let and holiday let products increasing to 80%, and the maximum LTV for self-build products increasing to 85% for both the end value and land value.

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