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Last week the intermediary lending arm of Britannia announced it was reducing the number of packager business partners to 16 in response to ongoing challenging market conditions.

Since June the lender has made several cuts to the panel, which has seen it shrink from 105 to 16 distributors.

Toby Nelson, communications manager for Platform, said it was unlikely the panel would be condensed further.

He said: "The decision was not off the cuff. There was a fair amount of analysis going on and that was looking at obviously business volumes but more importantly quality of business, application to completion rates. So as far as I know there are no further plans to reduce that number at all."

Julie Godley, partner of Southampton-based adviser Pure Mortgages and Financial Planning, said life would become increasingly difficult for packagers.

She said: "The strongest packagers will survive: the ones that give the best service. From our experience we are finding very few deals are going to packagers at all."