FINANCIAL services veteran Peter Dean has returned to the sector with a new venture focused on helping people avoid personal insolvency and developing a range of specialist loan solutions.

Mr Dean, who sold his previous firm Carrington Dean last year, said Glasgow-based Your Expert Group has so far secured more than £1 million of secured loans.

And it has just boosted its senior team with the hire of Nathan Ellis-Calcott as director of specialist lending.

Mr Ellis-Calcott brings 15 years’ experience in the specialist financial services industry to Your Expert Group and joins from Edinburgh-based Thistle Finance.

Mr Dean, a chartered accountant, said the firm aims to identify the most appropriate solutions for personal debt with services which “haven’t been properly developed or thought out before”.

“I’m very strong on financial inclusion for people, particularly people who are under pressure and in debt,” he said.

Highlighting his belief that people too readily take the step of selling their homes as a means of restructuring their debt, Mr Dean the solutions he offers aim towards “life after debt”.

“It is a period in life that people find difficult, but at the end of the day they have to have some quality of life. We try to bring different aspects to the thing,” he said.

Asked whether he was concerned about rising personal debt levels, as has been highlighted by the Bank of England, he replied: “Yes. Looking at the statistics over the last year and a half, it would seem to me people are getting into the same bad habits they were in before.

“When people don’t have change in their products now they are using their card, [and] when you use your card you forget how much you are spending.”

He said his concern over debt levels is evidenced by the reappearance in recent months of credit card providers offering balance transfer deals, and cited surging consumerism as the principle driving factor.

Meanwhile, asked why Your Expert Group differed from its competitors on the market, Mr Dean said it has a more “corporate structure” than the traditional IFA (independent financial adviser) model.

While IFA firms typically employ a handful of people, he noted that Your Expert Group already has 12.

He said the firm was building software which will provide clients and parties which refer business to it with real time updates on progress of applications. And declared that the firm will have a “much more transparent” commission and award structure.

Mr Dean, who ran debt solutions business Carrington Dean for 16 years before its sale to Creditfix, runs Your Expert Group with business partner Derek Mcphail, also a chartered accountant.

“We make a good team,” Mr Dean.

“He deals with most of the day to day stuff, I deal with the strategy.”

On the appointment of Mr Ellis-Calcott, Mr Dean said: “We regard Nathan’s appointment as something of a coup.

“He is well known as a UK industry expert in the specialist finance market and we’re delighted to have him on board.

“His appointment illustrates the extent of our commitment and ambitions and our ability to attract someone of his calibre to our new venture signals our potential.”

Mr Ellis-Calcott said: “At Your Expert Group we will be offering various complex prime residential and buy-to-let products. We are also looking to embellish individuals’ current second charge loan offering and we will be adding new lenders and new income streams in the form of commercial mortgages, bridging and development finance.”