Over 817,000 searches were carried out on Mortgage Brain’s Criteria Hub last year, an increase of 147% on the 330,309 searches performed in 2018.

Criteria Hub has over 700 search criteria providing over 45,000 lender entries.

October was the busiest month of the year, with almost 86,000 searches taking place, while on a quarterly basis the third quarter was the most active, with more than 220,000 searches being performed.

Mark Lofthouse, CEO of Mortgage Brain, said: “The mortgage market is an incredibly competitive place, and this has led to lenders attempting to standout from the crowd by adopting diverse criteria for their product ranges.

“With borrowers’ own circumstances increasingly more complex, matching the client with the right lender and product becomes more difficult and time-consuming.

“Technological solutions like Criteria Hub takes on a lot of the heavy lifting, allowing intermediaries to get detailed information from a host of lenders in a single place, and devote more of their time towards actually advising their clients.

“Criteria Hub is essentially the Google for mortgages, swiftly helping advisers identify precisely which lenders can support their clients’ needs.”