The recruits, who will be appointed over the next few weeks, are in Credit Decisions and New Business roles and will help to handle increased levels of business, said CEO Paul Burgess.

He said: “The boom in used car sales during the post-lockdown period has produced some very positive results for us and we have written more new business in the last three months than during any other comparable period.

“There are a number of factors behind this. The most important is simply that the market is very busy, thanks largely to pent-up demand from the preceding months, it appears. Whether this will continues is difficult to say but sentiment remains quite positive.

“Also, certain other lenders have tightened up their criteria in response to the coronavirus situation and so, as a flexible lender positioned just behind the initial line of motor finance companies, more business has been coming our way.

“Lastly, we took a decision as a business to stay open at the start of the pandemic which meant we were very well-positioned to hit the ground running when dealers started to reopen in June.”

Paul said that the vast majority of Startline’s team continued to be home based “We can see no immediate reason to enforce a return to our pre-crisis working conditions. The business continues to function well based around home working and could operate this way in perpetuity, if required. It looks like the safest and most effective option in the short-medium term at least.

“Having said all of that, there are a few people for whom home working just isn’t suitable for a variety of reasons, ranging from the personal to the technical, and we now have about a dozen members of staff who have returned to the office with the appropriate precautions in place.”