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If Lloyds TSB can be allowed to swallow up HBoS and create a super bank that has one-third of the mortgage market then surely any lender can buy any rival, no matter how big a business such a deal would create?

When the going got tough for HBoS the government was quick to give Lloyds TSB bosses the nod that a word would be had in the Competition Commission's ears to warn them not to rock the boat, cry monopoly and prevent the deal going ahead.

Surely, if a smaller bank than the financial services giant HBoS started to struggle it would be near impossible for the government and Competition Commission to now deny them the chance to leap into bed with a Barclays, Santander, RBS or HSBC?

Given the precedent set by HBoS and Lloyds TSB's new relationship it was unsurprising when last week kicked off with yet more chatter about who was going to stick their hand in their pocket to purchase Bradford & Bingley.

What with Santander's shareholders also starting the week by opening their arms to Alliance & Leicester as it ran towards it at high speed, you would think that some advisers that pride themselves on being able to wade through the pool of mortgage lenders would be biting their nails.

When the Mortgage Adviser team contacted large intermediary businesses their bosses stressed they were not particularly worried by the latest twists and turns in the tale of the credit crunch but all agreed that HBoS being gobbled up by Lloyds TSB could hit consumers hard when it comes to choice.

Do tell me if I am wrong, but surely a major selling point of a mortgage adviser is making sense of an array of choices available to a borrower? Less choice in the mortgage market should surely be a cause for concern.

How can you be a lifeboat shipping borrowers safely to shore and navigating them through the high seas of mortgage lenders throwing deals there way that could either save them or send them under when the waters now look so shallow?

Most of the major mortgage clubs and networks have been gearing up for the changing tide by establishing protection panels, working on their relationships with providers of savings accounts and have generally broadened their offering.

These businesses recognise that what seems to be happening to the sea of mortgage lenders is polarisation. We now have the giants and then the more specialist players and very little floating around in between to cling on to.

But what will be the new breed of mortgage advisers that emerges as a result of what is going on among the lenders? The market is changing and clearly intermediaries are going to have to evolve or find themselves shipwrecked on a shoreline that once had lenders crashing on to it trying to carry borrowers off to a better place.

A year ago, mortgage advisers could claim to be the expert a borrower required to sift through the thousands of deals available and find the golden nugget that was hidden away in the dirt at the bottom of the river.

Today, as the number of lenders dwindles, mortgage advisers will have to sell themselves far more on the closer attention they offer and valued added services should become the norm. Just finding that golden nugget may no longer be enough to stay afloat.

Emma Ann Hughes is editor of Mortgage Adviser