Paragon Banking Group has decided to quit the second charge mortgage market in order to concentrate its mortgages offerings on its core buy-to-let activities.

It will honour the current applications in the pipeline and will accept new applications up until 5pm on Friday 21 May 2021.

John Webb, managing director of seconds at Paragon, said: “I’d like to thank our brokers for the support they have shown to us over the last few years, many of whom I have worked with for over 30 years.

“I’d also like to thank the team at Paragon for their hard work and dedication over the last two decades.  We hope that the team will take up alternative roles that are currently available in the group.”

In its 2020 annual report, the group stated: “Lending in the group’s second charge mortgage operation was in line with plan in the first half-year, however it was scaled back in the second half in response to Covid-19.

“Within the second charge mortgage market the Group targets only higher credit quality customers, rather than the lower-rated borrowers generally associated with this sector. This limits potential lending in this field but should provide more resilience in adverse economic conditions, as proved to be the case in the pandemic.”