PTFS profits soar as Max predicts Wright on market

Despite network’s numbers decreasing by 42% annual turnover fell by just 20%, while productivity stood at £54,000 per member firm, up 23% from 2013.

Although Wright acknowledged that MMR had made the market’s growth more uncertain, he expected the intermediary sector to flourish.

He said: “In a time of predicted growth in mortgage volumes, virtually all of the growth in the mortgage market will come from the intermediated space rather than the direct space.”

The network reduced a number of risky low volume firms and large firms, while it also upped its fees, introducing enhanced support for its remaining core membership.

Wright added: “The past couple of years have put some major demands on the adviser sector and networks particularly with the additional regulatory costs and need for vigilant risk management.

“Over this period we have made decisions which at the time may well have appeared unusual or even reckless compared to others, but we knew it was absolutely essential for us to be ahead of the game and migrate to a new network model which put the consumer first.

“We had to get rid of the dabblers and the firms that were draining resource at the expense of others.

"No other network has pro-actively terminated firms in the way we did but no doubt others will now follow our lead as those still practising the old model are increasingly proving how broken it is.”

Personal Touch’s board costs were reduced by 11%, with gross profits increasing by 20% as a result.