There is something about the start of a year that naturally encourages you to pause. Not in any dramatic sense, but in the way that allows you to take stock and gauge the temperature of the market more clearly than you can when everything is moving at full throttle.
When Inspired Lending was launched two years ago, bridging was already part way through a transitional phase, but it was still often spoken about as a niche solution for demanding situations. For the deal where the clock was close to striking midnight.
While speed was, and still, remains part of its appeal, what has become increasingly obvious over the last two years is that the market has matured.
That maturity has changed the questions borrowers and advisers are asking, because more of the conversations we see now are not simply about how fast something can be done, but about how it should be structured, and how decisions made today avoid closing off options tomorrow.
I have written before that bridging has stepped out of the shadows of urgency and into a more strategic spotlight, and I still think that holds true at the start of this year. Demand has not disappeared, but intent has changed, with borrowers using short-term finance earlier, not because they have run out of alternatives, but because they simply want control.
They understand that liquidity, when used properly, can create breathing space rather than pressure, particularly in a market where transaction timelines are longer and certainty is harder to come by.
One of the things we have seen more frequently over that period is borrowers wanting access to capital without being forced into a single, rigid drawdown or a one-off decision.
This is particularly evident where assets are being repositioned, portfolios are being adjusted, or tax and timing considerations mean that flexibility matters as much as cost, if not more so.
In those situations, the ability to move capital in and out as plans evolve often proves more valuable than committing everything at the outset.
It is in response to that behaviour, rather than any desire to create something new for its own sake, that we have been giving more thought to how structures that allow funds to be accessed, repaid and reused over time can be made available in a more deliberate and consistent way.
The intention is not to complicate the process, but to reflect how borrowers are already thinking and operating in practice, particularly where projects are phased or decisions are driven by timing rather than urgency. In that context, avoiding the constraint of being locked into a single moment in time can make a meaningful difference to how effectively short-term funding supports the wider strategy.
More broadly, the market has become more demanding of lenders in terms of clarity and consistency. Brokers, faced with more choice, are less tolerant of ambiguity, and that has sharpened the focus on where appetite genuinely sits and whether a decision will hold once a deal moves beyond the headline stage.
This is why I often come back to the point that relevance today is built steadily, through delivery, rather than loudly, through claims.
Pricing plays into that dynamic as well, because where you sit on price influences how brokers think about you. As rates have moved over the last couple of years, those perceptions have changed, making it even more important to show, rather than simply say, how a proposition works in practice.
Whether that is through standard transactions, phased funding, or facilities that allow borrowers to manage cash flow without being forced into unnecessary sales or refinances, evidence tends to land more effectively than announcements.
From our perspective, coming into the market during this period has meant transforming alongside those expectations. It has required refining how we assess, structure and support deals based on what brokers and borrowers actually need, rather than what the market once assumed they needed.
While it would be easy to list transactions or point to individual examples, that does not add much to the conversation. The more important story is how bridging itself is being used, not who funded which deal.
Two years on, bridging now sits much closer to the front of the conversation. Not because it is fast, but because it allows people to manage timing on their own terms.
For lenders, that means the challenge is no longer simply about how quickly capital can be deployed, but about how intelligently it can be made to work over time.
