Pepper Money has been given regulatory approval to complete its integration with Optimum Credit.

Under the integration, Optimum Credit will be rebranded as Pepper Money, meaning that the specialist lender will offer a full range of first and second charge mortgages.

Following Pepper Money’s purchase of Optimum Credit in October 2018, it  has continued to operate the leading second charge lender under its original branding.

Optimum Credit will be rebranded as Pepper Money in approximately three weeks’ time.

Laurence Morey (pictured), CEO at Pepper Money, said: “Our goal at Pepper Money has always been simple – to become the number one specialist lender by delivering a proposition that supports greater financial inclusion. We’ve always understood that being the top specialist lender means offering a broad proposition and so, in 2018, we purchased the leading second charge lender in the market.

“Optimum Credit has such a strong reputation, it was very important that we let it continue to do what it has been doing so well for a number of years and so many of our customers and brokers would have noticed little change. But in the background, we have been working on getting everything right to bring the two businesses together under the Pepper Money brand.

“Today is an important step on our new journey. The closer collaboration will open up new opportunities for our business and our intermediaries, laying the foundation for us to further build on our proposition in the future.”