Stonebridge Group says it will continue to build this year on the “outstanding growth” it registered in 2016 by offering further opportunities to its advisers and pushing the development of its relationships and overall proposition.

Speaking at its annual conference, which took place on Monday at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham, Paul Nye, the mortgage and insurance network’s director business partnerships, said the firm would now build on the “outstanding success” the group had achieved in 2016.

Last month, Stonebridge revealed its 2016 business volume figures, with mortgage completions up 53% to £4.233 billion; life business volumes up 56% with £11.8 million of life commissions completed; while its GI business was up 37.5% to £731k.

In terms of its mortgage activity, Stonebridge supported 77 lenders last year, offered over 800 exclusive or semi-exclusive products to members, with advisers placing over 34,000 applications with those providers.

Nye outlined how, according to the most recent yearly network figures collated by Which Network, Stonebridge was one of the fastest growing networks. It had seen a 20% increase in AR firm numbers up from 200 to 251 over the course of 2016, with over 500 advisers across those ARs. He said it was equally pleasing to see that over half the group’s new advisers last year had joined existing AR firms, which he said was testimony to Stonebridge’s existing ARs success and business confidence.

He said Stonebridge would continue to focus on its core areas and anticipated announcing new relationships with new lenders, plus more exclusive products purely for its advisers. He also anticipated more new criteria pilots from lenders particularly in terms of interest-only and new-build offerings, plus he said more lenders would join the ranks of those now paying advisers’ procuration fees for product transfers.

Nye said that the Group’s results in protection sales had been largely driven by its provider panel. He also announced that two new providers would shortly be joining the panel to form a ‘Stonebridge Super Six’ which would be “one of the very best panels available and a great proposition for the AR membership to assist clients with their protection needs”. He also outlined how its ongoing GI partnership with L&G would evolve and said there would be a number of enhancements to announce during quarter two.

Finally, Nye revealed the Group’s Revolution software platform would deliver greater support for its AR membership in the months ahead. Enhancements would include integration with I-pipeline’s Solution Builder protection portal, and Xplan, the new online version of Trigold’s. He said both would give ARs significant additional benefits in business efficiency and customer engagement. This would be backed up by ongoing webinar and tutorials to aid adviser understanding and usage.

Nye said: “The Stonebridge Group annual conference gives us a chance to review the past 12 months but also set out our plans for the year ahead, in particular, the ongoing opportunities that are available for our advisers and the various ways we can support them in developing their propositions. This is particularly important when we consider the growing competition in the marketplace, especially evident at present with the rise of a number of digital advice propositions.

“That said, although we were very pleased with our 2016 growth, our focus is on delivering even greater support to our AR membership throughout 2017, across all business areas. Our mortgage proposition aims to provide advisers with maximum choice for their clients and real competitive edge. This includes access to exclusive products and to lenders with restricted distribution and we expect to build on these in the coming months.

“Likewise, our protection and GI propositions continue to evolve, ensuring even greater adviser and client benefits. Our highly regarded Revolution software system is central to the group’s proposition and we believe the enhancements launching shortly will deliver significant benefits for advisers to help ensure increased sales and greater business efficiencies.

“Overall, our aim in 2017 is to continue with our key USPs which means focusing on mortgage and protection, ensuring we remain low-risk and have a keen eye on cost control, whilst developing the support required by our firms to help them produce strong quality and significant business volumes.  We fully anticipate that this will ensure we continue to do what’s right for our members and that we (and they) will continue to grow.”