Just Mortgages has become Openwork’s number one broker in the network across lending volumes, protection and general insurance sales.

Just Mortgages joined the Openwork network three years ago. At that time, Openwork’s business case predicted that the brokerage would be carrying out £1 billion of lending at this point. Last year, it placed £2.4 billion of lending, almost two and a half times the predicted amount.

John Phillips (pictured), group operations director for Just Mortgages and Spicerhaart, said: “The information from Paul Shearman is a great validation of everything that we are doing at Just Mortgages and the high level that our brokers work to.

“In what is largely a static market we have increased our lending by 40% and our profits by 62% – but most importantly of all, this has been without compromising on the quality of the mortgage business that we place.

“We expect to increase our volumes still further when Openwork provides us with the authorisation to advise on equity release at the end of this quarter.”