Bridging lender, London Credit, has substantially improved its year-on-year completion times.

London Credit has revealed that in the first quarter of 2024 the average time between application and drawdown was just one month, compared to three months the previous year.

The bridging lender has been working hard over the past two years to improve its service levels, investing in more staff for its in-house teams, as well as restructuring existing teams to provide a slicker experience to brokers and their clients.

Constantinos Savvides, head of underwriting at London Credit, said: “We’re delighted to announce that we have improved the speed of our completion process by a factor of three at a time when demand for our products is also increasing.

“The pandemic and its knock-on effects added time to every part of the property finance process for all lenders but we decided to analyse each element to see how we could make improvements.

“The combined changes we implemented have resulted in time saved in all areas. This year, when terms are agreed it takes one week for the application to come in. We usually instruct the valuation on the same day, subject to acceptance of fees. As soon as a compliant valuation is received, we instruct the same day, and our solicitors make contact with the borrower’s solicitors on the same day, requesting the legal cost of undertaking.

“Ultimately, the time period between the initial enquiry stage and the drawdown of the loan is now one month, but we expect this to improve further in future.

“London Credit has service at its core and brokers can rest assured they can trust us to offer speed of service and certainty in decision-making that their clients need in today’s market.”