Figures released by the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) show that consumer finance new business grew by 14% in February 2014, compared with the same month last year.

The second charge mortgage market reported new business up 57% by value and 32% by volume in February.

Point-of-sale finance also showed a 23% increase, and the strong performance continued in retail store and online credit with new business growth of 12%.

Fiona Hoyle, head of consumer finance at the FLA, said: “On 1 April, the Financial Conduct Authority began supervising an additional 50,000 consumer credit firms. The challenge now is to get them through the authorisation process within a sensible timescale so that the supply of responsibly-provided credit can be maintained.”