Combined, Precise Mortgages and OneSavings Bank make up 9.3% of the buy-to-let mortgage market.
The merger between Charter Court Financial Services and OneSavings Bank has resulted in the group becoming the fifth largest buy-to-let lender, according to UK Finance data.
Precise Mortgages was ranked eighth on the list of the top buy-to-let lenders, with £1.64bn of gross buy-to-let mortgage lending and 4% market share last year, whilst OneSavings Bank was ranked seventh with £2.16bn and 5.3% of the market.
Combined this makes £3.8bn and a 9.3% of the market.
Alan Cleary, group managing director at Precise Mortgages, said: “The merger will make us bigger, better and stronger, and these figures demonstrate the benefits of harnessing the best of both firms.
“The combination will enable us to use our scale and resources to seek out new opportunities for brokers and their customers, whilst our complementary product set gives us greater reach in the market.
“As always, we remain dedicated to intermediaries and delivering outstanding products and service to the market.”
David Hollingworth, associate director of communications at L&C Mortgages, added: “You see the very big players you’d expect and the specialists sitting behind that and that merger shows just what a serious player it’ll make Charter Court/OneSavingsBank when it takes the combined weight of Precise and Kent Reliance on board.
“It shows what a big player they are in not just the specialist arena, but the whole market as a whole.”
Lloyds Banking Group has remained the largest buy-to-let lender.
In 2018 it retained its top spot with £5.53bn gross buy-to-let mortgage lending and a market share of £13.7%.
Also, in the top five were Coventry Building Society and Santander UK.
Coventry climbed up from fifth place in 2017 with £3.05bn gross buy-to-let mortgage lending, to fourth spot last year with £3.82bn.
Furthermore, Santander soared up from 10th spot in 2017 to fifth place last year.
The lender grew its market share from 3.6% to 5.8% and gross buy-to-let lending from £1.37bn to £2.33bn.
Hollingworth said: “All of these are established buy-to-let players.
“Santander has worked hard on its proposition to ensure it’s in the mix and Coventry has really established itself in the buy-to-let sector as a main player.
“The Mortgage Works are one in those lists that have moved into the limited company space.
“Barclays has also done well with buy-to-let.It looks at the case as a whole with affordability.
“If you have disposable income and have a shortfall in rental income, they take in that disposable income. That’s served them well.”
Meanwhile, Virign Money dropped from fourth to sixth spot in the list, with its buy-to-let book decreasing from £3.15bn to £2.26bn.
The rest of the top 10 consisted of companies such as Paragon Group and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
RBS saw its ranking fall from sixth to 10thafter its buy-to-let lending dropped from £2.16bn in 2017 to £1.35bn in 2018.
