Knowledge Bank has launched a new monthly Criteria Activity Tracker to keep brokers and lenders up to date with criteria movements in the mortgage and loan sectors.

As a monthly tracker, brokers will be able to see trends in the sector broken down by product type so that if they have a specialism they can keep abreast of activity in specific sectors.

Figures from the tracker showed that in May 2018 there were 53,544 searchable criteria on Knowledge Bank, from more than 100 lenders.

The tracker also revealed that, on average, brokers searched on 4.5 different criteria categories for each client.

The Criteria Activity Tracker shows the top five searches performed by brokers in three product sectors: residential, second charge and buy-to-let.

Over 203,000 criteria searches have been made using Knowledge Bank since its launch in September 2017. One of the key issues facing brokers is that most criteria changes are not publicised unless there is a particularly positive change and so brokers can be totally unaware of changes until they submit a case.

Nicola Firth, CEO of Knowledge Bank, said: “We recognised the need for a definitive source of information in the market on the scale and frequency of criteria changes being made. One of the things that surprises most brokers is the sheer scale of changes being made every week.

“Brokers are simply too busy to spend time checking through countless spreadsheets or lender websites for updates, so the Criteria Activity Tracker will provide a simple and regular update on criteria movement in the sector.”