Promise Mortgages has announced that operations have begun in its new first mortgage advisory division.

It follows the news of the appointment of Simon Carr last month.

The firm says the new division completes its strategic secured offering.

Steve Walker, Promise’s managing director, said: “With better technology and more lenders going direct to broker in the first and second charge space the world of a pure packager is pretty precarious.

“Over recent years we have developed our business to offer brokers a full range of packaging and referral services across the complete specialist sector and we know that brokers like to deal with one firm which can solve a multitude of problems for them.

“Just like our second charge, bridging, commercial and development services, brokers can now hand off prime or complex mortgage cases they are too busy to deal with. What’s more, they will earn between 0.4% and 0.8% of the mortgage amount which is more that they are likely to get direct from a lender.

“In addition, we won’t cross sell protection products to their clients and can hand them back the case to sell protection having already warmed the borrower up to the need.”

Carr added: “Brokers are very important to Promise so this final piece of the jigsaw is important for us and them. We know that some brokers want a safe pair of hands they can trust to deal properly with the complex cases they don’t have time for or even to service any prime/complex enquiries they get whilst they are on holiday.

“Whilst my part of the business looks very much like a traditional mortgage brokerage, it’s fantastic to have a team of specialist lending packagers sitting across the room to help us deliver outstanding and speedy solutions for the borrower. Any broker would love to have amount of expertise in house.

“It’s an exiting time for us and I know that any brokers who take advantage of this new service are going to love it.”