The lender’s ‘pause for breath’ is believed to have resulted from its inability to use previously viable securitisation channels, impacting heavily upon its risk outlook.
The action is likely to have a profound impact on packagers – an area of the market the lender had historically championed.
Vic Jannels, All Types of Mortgages and Professional Mortgage Packagers Alliance chairman, said the news had surprised him, and he agreed that this further blow to the packaging sector would do little to assuage the worries of those concerned for the future.
He said: “This is disappointing news. If anything, it was thought that Amber might scale down its operations, not remove itself entirely from the market. We thought it would be here for the long term.”
Jannels also voiced an escalating concern over whether the move had darker undertones, suggesting that balance sheet lenders were knowingly making a series of tactical moves in a bid to ‘tidy up the market’, with the intention of sweeping up any residual business on their return once conditions improve.
Raising further questions over the lender’s intentions, a source told Mortgage Introducer that Amber business development managers had begun speaking to advisers regarding investing money, rather than mortgage business, in the days preceding the announcement.
Amber said it would concentrate on servicing its £1.5 billion loan book under finance director, Paul Gittins.
It is reviewing the positions of around 27 of its 42 staff. However, a spokesperson stressed that a good number would be retained and assured brokers that all pipeline business would be honoured.
Gordon Jolly, managing director of Amber Homeloans, commented: “We have decided it is time to pause for breath and wait until the market returns to more normal conditions.”
