Mortgage choices have increased, with a greater range of lenders looking to provide a wider range of mortgage product options. The days of captital repayment mortgages or endowment-only are gone, with a bigger selection now available for more people. There are variable rate mortgages, 100% mortgages, bad credit mortgages, and a big choice of other mortgage products available that just were not around a few years ago, with companies such as the Halifax leading the market.
A key reason for the recent explosion in lending options has been the past few years of low interest rates, which has significantly reduced the risk for lenders to target a wider base of consumers - and for this requires choice.
As with mortgages, so with loans, with the traditional secure and unsecured loans now driven by low interest loan choices, with bad credit, early repayment, and variable payment rates.
Insurance products have always been diverse, but have also seen recent specialist expansion. As well as general car insurance, many providers also offer car breakdown cover, and specialist car insurance policies such as young driver, older drivers, women drivers - as well as a range of special vehicle insurances, such as motorbike insurance and van insurance.
For home insurance such as contents insurance and building insurance, there are also additional protection and insurance policies tailored to different home owner needs, especially since the growth of the buy-to let market.
Finance products for business have also improved - on top of general business loans and financing, additional options have since become available, such as invoice discounting.