The Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association (IMLA) believes the Bank of England is wrong to exclude intermediary mortgage lenders from its Special Liquidity Scheme (SLS).

Recently Mervyn King, the Bank of England governor, revealed he has extended the SLS scheme past its 21 st October deadline. But IMLA says King hasn’t done enough to free up mortgage funding.

Peter Williams, IMLA executive director, says: “This move does little to improve the current state of liquidity in the mortgage market. The SLS still excludes lenders which do not take deposits, preventing a large proportion of the mortgage market from moving the assets already on their balance sheets.

“The intermediary sector is responsible for nearly 80% of all new mortgages – it’s madness to rule out a large number of intermediary lenders from accessing the Bank’s funds when mortgage finance is so tight. The Bank of England can neither afford to ignore this nor continue to oppose government support, not least with respect to the wider financial stability agenda.”

IMLA says the Bank of England must reconsider which lenders the SLS is available to in order to create a level playing field.