Platform has increased its buy-to-let lending by over 10 times since last year.

The intermediary lender of The Co-operative Bank says buy-to-let lending now accounts for 80% of all its applications.

Lee Gladwell, business development director at Platform, said: “We responded to what intermediaries were telling us last year about rising demand in the rental market and took the decision to increase our support in this area during 2011.