Spectrum-Canada Mortgage Services Inc. has found that the subprime crisis and subsequent credit crunch has positively impacted both its origination and lending operations.

Established in 1999 specifically to service the non-conventional mortgage market the Burnaby, B.C. company’s focus is to provide alternative mortgage funding services directly to the banks and credit unions — a service it now provides to more than 80 different Financial Institutions across the country.

As Canadian banks and credit unions have tightened their own lending guidelines in the wake of the U.S. subprime debacle more customers are being turned down for mortgage assistance, says Carol Christopherson, pesident & CEO of Spectrum-Canada Mortgage Services Inc.

Many of these financial institutions have alliances with Spectrum to provide alternative funding services to their clients. The purpose of this is to allow the bank or credit union to maintain the relationship with their customer for the other wealth management and cross-sell opportunities.

According to Christopherson, the US sub-prime meltdown has caused Canadian banks and credit unions to tighten their own lending guidelines and refer more customers for mortgage assistance to Spectrum. “We have seen a huge increase in the number of inquiries coming through from the financial institutions in the last several months,” says Christopherson.

Spectrum says it is the only company in Canada to have these referral relationships with the banks and credit unions and is the only financial intermediary to have focused exclusively on the non-conventional mortgage market in the last eight years.

“We have also seen a dramatic increase in requests for mortgage funding in our lending operation as Canadian non-conventional lenders have either left the Canadian market or ceased offering products – We are fortunate not to rely on securitization for our funding which has allowed us to continue offering these services to the clients and members of our bank and credit union origination partners,” Christopherson adds.