Speaking during a debate on how to raise the profile of bridging finance at the Finance Professional Conference in Manchester, Mike said the perception of the bridging industry was still very poor.

“I get it all the time. ‘Oh, bridging – isn’t that loan sharking’, and that’s the opinion people have,” said Mike.

“If you type in bridging into mainstream news, you just get stories about bad practice, unfair charges, rolled-up interest that people didn’t know about - and that’s [the] mainstream media. That’s what we get.”

Mike suggested three things he would like to see done to improve standards within the bridging market to improve how it is perceived.

“We’ve got to disclose the cost of credit – brokers have no idea what a bridging loan costs,” said Mike.

“There is no way, without modelling this out, [to discover] what various fees cost. So I would say, if you want to put APRs on every single loan – so people can go – ‘I don’t really care what the fees are, but this is the cost to me’.

“At least, then, you can look at a bridging loan and you know there is nothing hidden and the cost is what it says, and that I think [that this] is the best thing we can do as an industry.”

Mike’s final suggestion concerned trade bodies, where he explained that if members don’t comply with rules set by a trade body, then they should not be a member.

Adam Tyler, CEO of the NACFB, responded: “Over the last 18 months we refused 40 lenders from joining the NACFB because they didn’t fit our criteria and we said ‘sorry, you can’t join’.

“That’s 40 lenders we’ve turned down, but that hasn’t stopped them trading – but we’ve taken that hard line.”

Gareth Lewis from Precise Mortgages, who was also on the panel, agreed that there was still negativity surrounding bridging.

“Quite frequently, we get people saying to us, ‘it’s bridging finance – you don’t have to ask questions’. There’s a stigma attached to it [like there’s] somebody in the back of a Ford Cortina handing out money and recuperating it with a baseball bat,” said Gareth.

“The more we, as lenders, educate brokers so they can go out to consumers and say ‘actually, bridging finance is about facilitating a transaction and allows you to turnaround and raise money’.”

Mike, however, was worried about ‘shouting’ about the bridging market.

“Until you get the product right, I have no interest in promoting bridging finance because people aren’t up to the same standards.”

“The bridging industry is getting bigger and either we need to improve things and self-regulate or the regulator is going to come in and make a total mess of it.”