Paragon Mortgages recorded a 58.4% year-on-year increase in buy-to-let lending in the first quarter of its financial year beginning October 2014 as lending volumes rose from £140.2m to £222.1m.

Its operating profits increased 14.9% in the first quarter last year, rising from £26.9m to £30.9m for the quarter to 31 December 2014.

According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders' figures released in December, buy-to-let figures in October enjoyed a year-on-year increase in loans of 22% and value of 29%, with lending of £2.7bn and 19,600 loan transactions.

John Heron, managing director of Paragon Mortgages (pictured), said: "We continue to benefit from an increase in the scale of our funding capability and, as a result of the deposit raising capability of Paragon Bank, improved diversity of funding.

"This has allowed us to continue developing our buy-to-let proposition for landlords and their intermediaries and we now have our most complete and competitively priced range of buy-to-let products. The fact that the pipeline continues to grow demonstrates well that the business has a good platform in place for further development through 2015."